Spending Money to Make Money: Small Business Marketing

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Saving Money on DIY Small Business Marketing? You May Be Losing Money & Customers

If you’re not in the Marketing business – Digital Marketing, Advertising, and Branding – and you’re managing the marketing for your company, you may be losing money where you think you’re saving money. The DIY small business marketing approach can have negative consequences for your sales and image, especially if you don’t have the knowledge and skills necessary to personally deliver professional results. This type of multi-tasking takes attention away from what it is you’re best at – running your business! Having the skillset to use modern marketing technology to its fullest takes training and guidance. Staying on top of industry business marketing trends takes time and knowledge. So where you think you’re saving money on doing it yourself, chances are you’re spending money by using up your own time and focus on complex tasks other than operating your company. There are a few areas in particular where DIY marketing can do more harm than good:

1. Business Website

While it is true that anyone can have a website these days, that does not mean that every website looks professional, appears in Search Engine rankings, and is good for business. For example, the common DIY site-building platform, WordPress, is not as easy to use as many people think. Creating a company site that functions in a user-friendly and efficient manner that helps move passive audiences to new customers takes advanced knowledge of website frameworks and an understanding of the marketing funnel. It only takes users 0.05 seconds to form an opinion about your website and decide whether they will browse your page or move on to the next business.

If you don’t have a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy in effect, it’s difficult to improve your ranking on the big search engines. Since 75% of users never scroll past the first page of results, knowing how to move your business up to page one is paramount to getting views for your website. Even trying to save money through shared hosting can cause more problems than it’s worth. With the slow upload times and reduced securities, cheaping out on your server can turn potential customers away before they even get a peek at what your business has to offer. If your website doesn’t look and act professional and it doesn’t measure up to your competitors’ quality, you will lose out on audiences and on business.

2. Print Materials

In the same way that potential clients form an opinion about your website almost immediately, print materials have a similar reaction window. Cheap looking advertisements or poor small business marketing strategies can render an entire direct mail campaign, banner placement, or business card batch ineffective. They can cost money in reprints or waste money on irrelevant contact lists. Not only can amateur print materials prevent audiences from engaging with your company at that time, it may even convince them not to do business with you (and your underwhelming presentation) in the future. If used correctly, professionally, and with some small business marketing industry knowledge behind it, a print marketing campaign can yield $12.57 on every dollar spent. So, despite murmurs to the contrary, print marketing is not dead. It is, however, most lively and fruitful when administered by a small business Marketing Agency.

3. Social Media Management

There are a lot of working parts – and platforms – that go into managing a successful social media marketing campaign. For starters, your social media persona is likely going to differ from your own personality. Strong profiles tend to show a certain type of ego; one that tends to be professionally cultivated to best represent your brand’s principles while resonating with your customer base. As with websites, it’s easy to sign your own business up on popular social media platforms. But do you know if your demographic engages with sales more on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram? After all the time that you’ve spent on researching and developing content – creation, curation, and circulation – did you know that tweets with images receive more clicks and favourites and 150% more retweets? The trends are constantly changing and the tricks are innumerable. It’s a lot to stay on top on if networking is not your full-time gig.

Know Where to Spend Your Money to Make More Money

Advertising platforms and mediums are not one-size-fits all. Just because you like one type of business marketing does not mean that’s what will attract sales or resonate with your customers. Do you know where to place an ad so that it’s seen by your target demographic? 98% of advertisers are wasting money on ads due to lack of information and tracking capabilities. It comes down to entrusting your business’s marketing to professionals that have indepth knowledge on each element of the campaign.

More effective than any one inhouse marketing employee, a team of business creatives like CM2 Media can deliver a number of specialized perspectives under an amalgamated cost. Our agency will sit down with you to discuss the full spectrum of professional services your business should enlist to reach maximum marketing potential – starting with budgeting and ending with accountability for the campaign results.

Your time has value; it’s important to focus that time on running your business. Since your company maintains a professional standard, so too should the business marketing campaign that will represent your brand and attract new customers to your products and services. Don’t be a recreational player in a professional game. Hire a marketing agency to do your Marketing, Advertising, and Branding. Let us do what we do best, so we can show everyone else what you do best.

Contact us today about your small business marketing needs! We are specialists in small business marketing with websites, search engine optimization, wordpress development, online advertising, Google Ad Words, video marketing, graphic design and email marketing.
 

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