It’s easy to spend money on marketing
When you start a business, you get all sorts of advice on the subject of marketing and how you should put adverts in here, tweet there, and the list goes on. I know we were given lots of suggestions when we started our business. A lot of the ideas cost money but as each tip was so earnestly given, you feel you have to follow the advice. I’m sure you’ve all been there.
It’s also worth reviewing your marketing to see what works for you
Looking back at what we’ve spent money on over the years, the list includes:
- Leaflets and postcards – we’ve still got a lot of those still hanging around.
- Trade stands – they cost a lot and if you’re a small business may not be particularly useful.
- Social media – can be effective but takes time.
- Website – of course!
- Networking – essential, but there are expensive and cheap variants and you need to meet your potential customers not just have a good breakfast.
- Adverts – we’ve only done a few and with limited success.
And there are many other things we haven’t tried to date.
So, did you ever work out what works best for you? Or did you just carry on spending?
Yes, you have to experiment to start with, but there’s no point carrying on with something if it isn’t working. Here are a couple of examples.
Adverts
With advertising you have to leave an printed advert in place for quite a while; people will half-notice it at the time of reading a magazine or looking at a web page and make a mental note if it’s something they might need in the future. If the advert is in approximately the same place of each issue of a magazine, then someone will be able to find it when they need it. This is why advertising in a local magazine works well for local traders, for example. However, when it isn’t working, then you need to stop especially if it’s costing you money.
Social Media
Success with social media is very dependent on the fashion – not just how your post/tweet/photo looks and sounds but also the platform that is in vogue. Just because you were getting good results from Facebook last year doesn’t mean that you should continue there rather than move to the next up and coming platform (Instagram at the time of writing, but next year who knows?).
Do that marketing review
We’d recommend that you undertake a marketing review of your business regularly – at least every six months. It doesn’t need to take a long time, but it is worth knowing whether you are spending your time or money effectively. the sort of questions to ask are:
- Am I reaching the right people?
- How much has it cost me (remember to include time AND money)?
- How much business did I get from it?
- Is it working better ow worse than a year ago.
- What are other people doing and do I know if it’s successful?
Get some help: Come to one of our marketing workshops
If doing the review is too daunting a task, then why not come to one of our marketing workshops? We’ll take you through the process of doing the review and you’ll be able to get the opinions of the other businesses present. We run them regularly, so look on our workshops page to find when the next one is.
Alternatively, we’re happy to provide a 1-1 review. Get in touch.
