Why Your Small Business Needs Marketing
“Marketing is Just an Expense”
Many of the small businesses that I have worked with are really good at what they do. They run their operation well and provide a quality product or service to their customers; and most importantly, their customers love the widget (product or service).
But having a great widget is only part of any business. Without having a strategy or a marketing management process, no one will learn about the widget.
For many small businesses, marketing is an afterthought; a foreign concept that is perceived as an expense. When done incorrectly, that’s an accurate statement and it’s a red drain on the business bank account. But when a marketing strategy comes to life and is implemented correctly, there will be a positive ROI (return on investment).
What is Marketing?
Before diving too deep into why your small business needs a resource to guide the marketing management, it will be helpful to explore the definition of marketing…
The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines Marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
In short, Marketing is communicating and distributing the value of your widget to the correct audience. Without knowing it, you may have already implemented some small business marketing efforts. Do you have a website? If yes, that’s great, but unfortunately, marketing is more than that. A marketing strategy and the tactics that help drive new and repeat business is always evolving.
Understanding your Small Business Marketing Needs
To provide some context around the benefits of small business marketing, a few questions below (that are normally addressed during the marketing strategy & audit phase within DBV Marketing’s marketing management process) are important to understand why marketing is an ROI driven benefit and more than an expense.
Do you know your buyers’ demographics?
Where do they live?
What’s their household income?
What is their job title?
Why did your buyers initially choose your product or service?
Are you using this reason in how you communicate your offering?
Do you consistently communicate with your prospects and clients now?
Do the touch points represent the brand accurately?
Are you conveying the right message at the right time (i.e. are welcome emails set up)?
Do you have enough leads (prospects) and are enough of them converting to paying customers?
Are you happy with your revenue and bottom line?
If you answered more “no” than “yes”, then marketing is a good investment in your small business. When marketing is implemented properly, it helps a business grown. Waiting until there is a need means that it’s too late.
Marketing Analytics and Insights Drive Results
As a data-driven marketer, I enjoy utilizing data and insights to support decisions and direction (most of the time, Google Analytics is my tool of choice). Unfortunately, there are not many hard statistics to support the ROI benefits of a marketing investment, but I did find one. According to Neilsen, the average marketing return on a $1 investment is $1.09. Would you like to earn $0.09 for each dollar spent after COGS and related expenses? A 9% increase to the bottom line (net earnings) is certainly a return that most investors would take.
What to Expect from your Small Business Marketing Efforts
As a seasoned marketer, it’s my duty to inform you that there is no magical marketing bullet and that results do not happen overnight. Anyone that tells you otherwise is not the right partner for you. However, by utilizing the DBV Marketing systematic approach that consists of learnings from industry best practices, competitor insights and available data from clients and other internal sources, your small business will start to realize results in few months.
And even though all industries are different, the good news is that while your small business may not have much of a budget, there are many marketing tactics that span across industries that are low or no cost. One example is utilizing the free tools that are available to anyone, such as Google My Business. This digital tool allows for increased exposure on page one of Google search rankings, while also explaining more about your widget to potential clients. There are more examples like this that apply in the digital and offline spaces.
In the end, if you have happy clients, you can grow your business. Let DBV Marketing help you realize your potential through insight driven, and ROI focused marketing.