WORLD ACADEMY OF INFORMATICS AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES
ISSN : 2278-1315
can be; sales day book, purchase day book, cash book, final
degree in it. You don’t have to blow ten thousand dollars of
accounts etc.
budget on it. Just start small, track smart, and expand what
works.
LACK OF GOOD WEBSITE
It is on record globally that “Just less of half of small
Not developing a written marketing plan and marketing
businesses have websites”. You read that right. Nearly half
budget
of all small businesses in the globally world don’t have a
website.
It an old adage that still holds true today: Failing to plan
Some business owners think they don’t need a website
means you are planning to fail. Small businesses that don’t
because they are a local business. However, 97% of
have a rock solid marketing plan have a high rate of failure
consumers search online for products and services, and more
and usually lack the proper marketing budget. In fact,
than half of searches are local. People will (or won’t) find
according to recent research, B2B (business-to-business)
your business online before they ever go (or don’t go) to
marketers said their effectiveness increased significantly when
your business. Bottom line, you need a website.
they had a documented content marketing strategy and 40
Maybe you think creating a website will be too hard, or too
percent of marketers deemed least effective (according to how
expensive. It doesn’t have to be hard or expensive though.
effective they rated their content marketing) had no written
Dozens of companies have stepped forward to make website
marketing strategy.
creation easier and more affordable. You can have a decent,
My advice to business owners is “Just Do It”. Take the time to
effective and reliable website for less than $250. If you can
develop a strategic marketing
set up an answering machine, you can learn how to edit your
plan. As you create a marketing plan, be sure to address the
website yourself, too. Companies like eesysite, Wix,
financial costs of implementing each strategy. For most small
GoDaddy, Weebly, Squarespace and many, many more can
businesses, the general rule of thumb is that 9-12% of revenue
help.
should be earmarked for marketing efforts. If you are in
Hiring Marketing Staff without Studying the Marketing
startup mode or early stages you may need to invest more as
Environment Yourself
you build your brand awareness.
Some of the smartest owners fall for this one. They know
Your plan should outline the specific allocation of cash, for
they need to do marketing, but they have no time to do it. So
they hire someone to do it for them.
Sounds like a good start, and it could be a good start.
Except, you haven’t studied marketing, or the type of
marketing you have just hired for. There are risks of this
happening at any time, but business owners who haven’t
read up on marketing seem to fall for it again and again and
again.
You need marketing literacy. That doesn’t mean you have to
be an expert. You just need to know enough to be able to tell
when you’re talking to an expert, and when you’re talking to
a moron.
Small business magazines can help. Podcasts are a great
way to find out what’s working. There are dozens of small
business marketing experts who can help, pick the one
whose personality you like the most. But you really do need
to spend 2-3 hours every week just learning about
marketing.
No marketing at all
This one is dangerously tempting. There are so many good
justifications for it. “A business owner may assume that, if
the company creates a world-class product/service/store, the
things like website design and maintenance, inbound
world will find the company”. Nope. The world won’t. Even
marketing, marketing collateral, social media marketing ads,
the most awesome businesses in the world, which are often
logo design and, if necessary, finding and paying a
thought of as not doing any marketing, actually do
freelancer to assist with the areas of your plan you don’t have
marketing. They just do it so they don’t recognize it as
the expertise to execute on. Part of your budget planning
marketing.
should include money for technology and software tools that
“If a company doesn’t spend any money on marketing, they
will deliver a return-on-investment (ROI) of your overall
can put all that money back into improving the business”.
marketing efforts.
Without marketing, the engine of your business has no gas.
Planning your Budget Focusing on Just One Thing
The trouble is, of course, that even without marketing, you
It’s even worse if business owners spent their budget on
are already overworked. You are already short on budget.
something they have never tried before. This mistake happens
You have got a dozen other reasons why you did like to just
an awful lot, especially when owners have their launch
skip marketing, which many of business organization do.
budget. They have got this nice lump of money, and they
The good news is you don’t have to hire someone full time
think if they invest it in this one big thing, it will help to get
to do your marketing. You don’t have to get a
them to break even faster.
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ENDEAVOR 2019 | WAIMS ACADMIC PRESS
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