In Charge of Marketing?
If you’re in charge of marketing, you must do these 3 things.
Figure out what your marketing strategy is.
Small business owners should have a master marketing plan as a reference if there's no one really in charge of marketing or taking it seriously. Your plan should include your audience segments, understanding your customer’s story (what they want), and the steps you plan to take a potential customer to an actual customer. We laid out a reference to what makes a good marketing plan here.
Measure Return on investment (ROI).
If you do nothing else with marketing, it’s imperative that you track the return on investment. This is the basis of what marketing it. You’re spending money to make money. It’s that simple.
You may want to spend money on Google ads, a promotion, some flyers, a facebook ad, or an in-store hand-out. The person in charge of marketing must know if the spend on marketing translates to actual dollars. Example: If you have a printed or digital promotion, it should have a tracking code or coupon code attached so you know where the sale came from.
3. Take Advantage of These Platforms First
Facebook Ads and Email Marketing (ActiveCampaign or MailChimp). Yep, just these 2. If you want to make an impact right away and show your worth as a marketing manager or person in charge, these 2 platforms will give you the quickest return on investment.
You can spend $10 on Facebook Ads today and reach 1,000 people in your niche today. This is huge. No big planning or bureaucratic 3 month-marketing plan to strategize for. Know what your customer wants, figure out how to give them what the want, and spend $10 to get in front of them with a call-to-action. Go here to learn more about Facebook Ads.
Emails are yes, still an incredibly useful and effective from of digital marketing. You don’t need a huge list - you just need a list of people who want to hear from you. People forget easily, and they don’t know what they don’t. It’s perfectly okay and actually desirable to email a hungry audience multiple times a week with content they want to consume. Doing this will drive more action on your brand and create customer loyal, referrals, and an increase in business like you wouldn’t believe! And, a platform like MailChimp is free to start. You can send out emails to your list today.
When you don't know who's in charge of marketing, make a plan, or find someone to be in charge.
If someone can be in charge, marketing needs to be the life of your business to this person or team. While it is a separate core function from sales, it integrates with all that you do. It has a voice, a vision, and magnifies your brand, communicates your value, and helps convert prospects and leads into sales.
Small Businesses Often Only Focus on Sales Instead of Marketing...
It's common for a business owner to have a heavy influence in sales, and even to naturally be a good marketer, but often, you only have time for one or the other. Marketing becomes "sales" to small businesses, when in reality, they should be treated as separate core functions of the business.
Marketing should be what keeps sales going when there would be a dry spell, it should explode growth in new niches, reinvigorate existing customers (and your company), and should be working while you sleep.
Go here to read more about huge marketing problems your small business faces.
