Who Needs Marketing? Every Small Business Owner (Here’s Why)
I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately with small business owners, and there’s something that’s really breaking my heart. I’m seeing businesses close their doors – good businesses, businesses that could be thriving – and when I dig into what’s happening, it often comes back to marketing.
Not because they’re bad at business. Not because their product or service isn’t good. But because there are so many missed opportunities to implement strategic marketing plans.
Here’s the Truth: Everybody Needs Marketing
I don’t care if you’re B2B or B2C. Online business or brick-and-mortar. Service-based or e-commerce. You need marketing.
Now, marketing is going to look different for every business. There are best practices, and there are foundational pieces that apply across the board. But how it applies to you and your business – that’s where it’s going to differ. That’s where you need to take these principles and apply them to your specific industry and situation.
You Also Need an Online Presence (But Not What You Think)
Before you start getting overwhelmed with the idea of being on social media all the time, let me be clear: this does not mean you need to be posting two to three times a day.
I’m not saying you need to be glued to your phone creating content constantly. But you do need to have an online presence that is consistent. Where people can regularly find you, learn about you, keep updates on you and your business, and engage with them.
I’m seeing a lot of businesses that don’t prioritize their online presence, and it really turns into a lot of struggle and difficulty in maintaining the clients, the customers, the cash flow to sustain the rest of their business model.
It just is what it is. So let’s make the most of it.
Marketing Strategy: Your Roadmap from Point A to Point B
Everybody needs a strategy, which is really just a plan. An intentional plan that’s going to take you from point A to point B.
Think of it as your roadmap for all of your marketing activities. It’s going to outline who, what, where, when, why, and how for your marketing. When you have this strategy, you have something you can go back and reference. What you are working on, when you’re working on it, how you’re going to communicate to your audience about it.
If you’re at this point where you’re trying to create content and you’re just like, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m supposed to talk about. This doesn’t seem like it’s gaining any traction” – I would encourage you to go back and look at your strategy. And if you don’t have a strategy, I would encourage you to create one.
Why Strategy Comes Before Implementation
Usually what I see is that people try to hire somebody to implement their marketing without having a strategy in place. You’re likely just going to be wasting your money.
It’s going to be a situation where you’re just doing things to check off a box.
They’re doing things to check off a box.
Each part of your marketing is working independently.
You’re not going to be able to get traction. You’re not going to be able to move people from one part of your audience into the next, and then moving them all the way through into the paid customer client box.
The strategy is what’s going to move everything through. It’s going to connect all of the pieces and make it a cohesive experience for the people in your audience.
Marketing Is More Than Social Media
When people hear marketing, the first thing they think of is social media. When I introduce myself and let people know I have a marketing agency, I think the first thing they think of is, “Oh, you do social media management.”
While yes, social media is an important part of marketing in almost every marketing strategy for every business, that is not the only piece to focus on. There are a lot of different options under the umbrella of marketing:
- Email marketing
- SEO or content marketing blogs for your website
- Paid advertising
- Print marketing
- Influencer marketing (especially for e-commerce brands)
Obviously, not every one of these are going to apply to you and your business. But there is more than just social media marketing.
Marketing Teams Are Made Up By Specialty Roles
When you’re hiring for marketing, whether you’re looking for somebody to be your social media manager, your ads manager, handle the SEO for your website, manage your podcast, plan all of your content – all of these really are specialty roles.
There’s so much information out there with marketing. So many things change. Trends change. Consumer behavior changes. How people are using platforms changes. There’s just a lot, and so really each one of these are specialty roles. Ideally they would be different people handling each one of them.
However, that’s not always possible and that’s not the reality for a lot of small businesses.
Outside of each of these areas, there is also the person that should be managing the marketing. That’s where someone like me would step in – managing the marketing, managing all of these aspects, bringing in the strategy for each one of these and connecting them all together.
When you’re thinking of the marketing manager, think of that as the person overseeing the strategy, managing all your team members, monitoring your analytics, making sure all of the activities and the projects are moving along timely. Everything is going out when it should.
The Bottom Line
You’ve got strategy, and then you have implementation. You need both. You cannot have one without the other.
If you get the strategy but don’t implement it, you’re obviously not going to see results. If you try to implement without the strategy, you’re just going to basically be throwing everything against the wall hoping it sticks, because there’s nothing to keep you accountable.
The strategy keeps everything intentional. It keeps everything on track and in line and working together to get you that momentum. So it’s not just doing all the things, throwing everything out there, hoping to get traction. If you’re hoping a lot of the time, you’re probably not being as strategic as you could be.
Ready to Get Strategic?
If your marketing right now isn’t working, but you don’t really know what to ask for, don’t try to just go out and hire to solve any problem that somebody says you probably have.
Start with your strategy first. It gives you that plan, that outline, that blueprint. So if something isn’t working – whether it’s social media traction, email list growth, or open rates – you’ll know exactly what area to look at and what needs to be fixed.
I want you to understand the marketing theory and strategy theory. That’s going to help you decide what will or will not be a good idea for your marketing. When everyone’s telling you that you should be doing this to get that result, you’ll understand why that’s probably working for them and whether it’s going to work for you.
Otherwise, you’re just going to get burnt out trying this and trying that, saying “I’m doing all this, and it’s just not working.”
The strategy is what’s going to change that. Want help with your marketing? Let’s connect!
P.S.- Are you more interested in DIYing your marketing? I have a free strategy plan workbook, this is the perfect starting point!
