Running a small business is challenging, make no mistake. As the business owner, you are responsible for recruiting the right people, increasing sales, paying wages and super, submitting various tax returns (PAYG, GST, payroll, company tax) and providing quality customer service.
Then there’s marketing! And sadly, the activity which brings in the most revenue for your business is often the most neglected area.
You know you need to market your business to become or remain visible to your target audience. But like most small businesses, there are more pressing priorities of operating a business that demand your attention. Your time will be spent on operational issues and you will struggle to find the time to do any marketing at all, until you realize that sales are dependent on creating visibility and generating demand for your product or services.
Small Business Marketing Challenges
The concerns we hear most often from small business owners when it comes to small business marketing are:
- Lack of resources (budget / people / time)
- Increasing visibility or generating quality leads
- Choosing the right social media platforms for my business
- Producing and delivering content takes a lot of time
- Coming to grips with the changes in the digital marketing world
Notice most of these challenges are tactical. The good news is for tactical challenges can most often be solved with a little planning and focus.
So, let’s talk about how you can conquer your small business marketing challenges and successfully market your business.
Create a Marketing Plan & an Editorial Calendar
Solving the majority of marketing challenges is accomplished by creating a simple marketing plan to guide your efforts based on your resource constraints and schedule your time. I’m not a big fan of writing lengthy and complicated marketing plans. But if you are serious about being in business and want to effectively market it to your ideal client, you need to take the time to plan.
Without a plan, you have too many “opportunities” coming at you with no way to determine whether they make sense for your business. Or without a plan optimized for your business, you will copy what other businesses are doing which may or may not be the right thing for you. In either case, you will most likely waste time and money with little to show for it.
A marketing plan will focus your efforts on attracting your target audience and help you determine if you are veering off track and what you need to do to reach your destination (or marketing goals).
Your marketing plan will help you:
- Determine your marketing goals. Focus your goals on increasing your brand visibility and generating quality leads so your activities help you overcome those two challenges.
- Define your marketing strategies that will help achieve your goals. Strategies can include content marketing, social media, event marketing (both online and offline), networking, direct marketing, search engine marketing, email marketing, public relations and advertising.
- Outline what activities you will use within each strategy. There are many activities you can use. Figure out which ones make sense for your target audience and will work for you in terms of resources.
Make it Easy – Download Our 1 Page Marketing Plan
Our 1 Page Marketing Plan will give you a concise overview of how to map out your strategy for communicating with your target audience to grow sales and build your brand. You can access a free copy here: https://www.marketingcatalyst.com.au/free-stuff/
Once you have your marketing plan in place, then you should create an Editorial Calendar.
Editorial Calendar
These days the Content is King.
How are you going to produce content? How you will produce content in a consistent and planned manner?
We find the easiest way is to use an Editorial Calendar. This enables us to research, plan and write content for websites and social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+ and many more, in a proactive and planned manner.
This avoids that rushed feeling of needing to keep your social media platforms fresh and vibrant whilst on the hop!
If you are reading this and are thinking “Yes, that all sounds great, but what content am I going to produce and where I am going to find the time?”. Don’t worry, you are not alone. That’s why we offer an outsourced social media and content creation service. For more information, see https://www.marketingcatalyst.com.au/social-media-marketing/
Outsource Tasks When Necessary
Small business marketing involves many challenges, particularly around the most valuable of resources – time, people and money. With the many marketing strategies available to you, trying to do it all can be overwhelming.
This is why having the marketing plan is so critical. The plan should take into account your resources and provide you with the most effective strategies that you can do with your limited resources. In addition, you may want to consider outsourcing some tasks where you know you won’t be able to consistently execute.
If you need a hand in developing your marketing plan or your editorial calendar then contact us here for a free consultation. You can call us at 1300 733 255 or email us at info@marketingcatalyst.com.au
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