Think you can’t afford to pay for marketing?
You’re not alone. Thousands of SMEs fail to invest in a marketing advertising strategy for the products and services they have on offer. Marketing is key to achieving better margins and increased sales. After all, you can’t sell more of your product if nobody knows it exists! It’s all very well relying on word of mouth, but that will only take you so far—and there’s the old statistic that people will tell an average of 9 people about a good experience, but 16 about a bad experience. All you need is one dissatisfied customer, and that’s your “marketing” strategy out the window!
It has been estimated that every year SMEs lose £122 billion in potential sales due to a lack of marketing.
It’s easy to understand why someone running their own business might not want to invest in a marketing strategy. Running a business takes up all of your headspace and your energy—not to mention time! The day to day effort of running a business takes its toll and we often feel like we just don’t have enough brain left to think up a clever marketing plan or even a strapline or slogan. And then there’s the cost of actually implementing a marketing strategy: advertising costs money, wherever you decide to do it and we often feel like that’s just another expense we can’t afford.
These days with the advent of the internet we are all competing in a global market, whether we like it or not. That means there are always going to be larger companies with massive budgets and endless resources for their marketing advertising strategy. But that doesn’t mean the little guy can’t make just as big an impact in terms of marketing.
The internet might mean we’re competing against a much wider market, but it also gives us a much wider range of tools with which to develop highly effective marketing at a lower cost than you might expect. Digital marketing has grown the most in the last few years and provides targeting like no other media. That said, even traditional forms of media can provide a small company with a strong ROI without breaking the bank.
It’s easy to blame a lack of a marketing advertising strategy on having no budget, but realistically, we can all find enough cash for some shiny new pens or a whiteboard for the meeting room can’t we. It’s to do with priorities, and not being scared to try it. Marketing your product or service can seem scary and expensive. The very word sounds like it’s going to come with a great big bill, doesn’t it! Coming up with a marketing strategy doesn’t have to be a big, expensive headache though. Why not meet us and chat about what you’re looking to achieve. Once we know what you want and who you’re aiming at, we can do the rest.
In this day and age you might think you can’t afford to market, but realistically you can’t afford not to!
