The one thing I hear from people running their own businesses is that there is so much to do when it comes to marketing, and they don’t know where to start, feel completely overwhelmed and didn’t start up their business to spend all their time on marketing.
First of all, some tough love. If you are running a business on your own you have two choices – learn to do it yourself or outsource to some who can do it for you. The latter is often financially impractical, especially when you are growing your business and trying to build up your profits. Which leaves you with learning how to do it yourself. And I really do sympathise. I have 25 years’ experience in Marketing, studied with the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and have learnt my trade working with large corporations, solopreneurs and start-ups in the growth phase. How, as a start-up or someone with no previous marketing g or business experience, can you tackle your marketing – you clearly don’t want to spend 25 years learning the ropes!
Of course, that’s not feasible, so how do you know what to spend your time and cash on when it comes to building your business?
Recognise that you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s only with experience that you will see where the gaps in your knowledge are. Experience is key – if you don’t try anything you will never know. So, try to step away from the noise and constant messaging about what you should be doing for your business, and just try something. Anything. It could be attending a networking meeting, or boosting a Facebook post, or running a Facebook ad (not the same thing!), sending out an email to your list, no matter how small that list is.
As you are putting your ‘marketing something’ into action, you will start to realise what you don’t know. This is really positive, as it gives you an indication of where to get help, so instead of drowning in tips and freebies to help you with every sort of marketing possible you can become focussed. Maybe it’s how to write your minute for your networking meeting, maybe it’s knowing how to set up a Facebook business page, maybe it’s knowing how to find a graphic designer or printer for your business cards and flyers. No-one is born knowing these things, and you won’t know what you don’t know until you start to take some action.
Be really clear about what you expect your ‘marketing something’ to do. Ask yourself why you have chosen this ‘marketing something’ – is it because everyone else seems to be doing it, is it because you know someone who has used this tactic successfully, or because of all the options out there it is the one that you feel most comfortable doing? Then decide what you want from it – to get leads, build visibility, make sales? Be specific – how many leads, how many sales, and in what time period? And how will you measure this? Visibility (the current buzz word for awareness) is notoriously difficult to measure, and the impact of it even less so. If you have limited time and budget to spend on your marketing, you need to be able to tell if it is working for you.
Once you have reached the end of your set time period, reflect on how successful you were. Did you achieve what you wanted. Now be honest and ask yourself why this might be. Take a long, cold look at what you did and how you did it and if it worked give yourself a big round of applause – you’re onto something good, and it will probably work in the future (though it is always wise to reflect after each activity as things change, especially in the world of digital marketing).
If it didn’t work, and you can’t see why then ask other people of they can positively critique what you did. This can be scary, so you might want to start either with people who you trust implicitly and are happy to listen to, or to people who are complete strangers, so that there is no chance of taking their feedback (too) personally.
One of the biggest mistakes I see is business owners not understanding that prospective customers need different messages throughout the sales funnel. If you are working your visibility why would you expect someone who has never met you or come across you on social media to what to buy from you? The sale (which, let’s be honest, is the outcome you need if your business to survive) comes at the end of a process. The current buzz phrase is Know, Like, Trust. People need to discover you, take time to get to like you, and finally trust you enough to buy into whatever you are offering. I really get that for therapists who are helping people thinking of a consultation or programme as a sale seem a bit cold, but please be assured that being business like does not have to come across in either your marketing messaging or delivery of your service – it’s a ‘back office’ mentality that will help you to work profitably.
Take Aways
1. Doing something is better than doing nothing.
2. Accept that you don’t know what you don’t know, and that when running a business, you are constantly learning.
3. Set goals, measure your results against your goals and work out what worked and what could be improved.
4. Get to understand your customer’s buying process and market to each stage.
5. Remember that sales are at the end of the sales funnel, not at the top.
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