How to make marketing win for you and your business
Investing time and money into marketing may feel like a luxury for many small businesses , but it doesn ’ t have to be that way . Andrew Harrison , director of the Event Supplier and Services Association ( ESSA ), discusses its benefits for those supplying the exhibitions sector and suggests his top tips for making marketing work with minimal investment
When asked to contribute to this edition of EN I struggled to think what I could write about marketing : Don ’ t we have other priorities currently in the sector ? Aren ’ t there more worthy topics to cover ?
We could argue the answer is ‘ yes ’, but I reminded myself that I spent my early professional years dedicated to marketing , having moved to Bristol from Oldham in the late 1990s to gain a degree in it .
Marketing was different then : We didn ’ t have social media or online video content . Only adults had mobile phones . I had an email address , but nobody to email and I wrote my dissertation on the benefits of direct mail over other print media .
Today , my life in marketing has changed enormously but the key principles , repeating trends and how companies behave , succeed and fail are the same .
Marketing – broadly defined as the promotion and selling of goods and services – often slides down the list of priorities for some business owners when starting-up , and is the first thing they abandon when times get tough . Investing in an area where you can ’ t always guarantee a return can appear less tangible and hard to justify when cashflow is tight .
This isn ’ t a practice I recommend , but I do understand , especially amidst such a volatile landscape . The focus for many over the last two years was simply on survival . Besides , events weren ’ t happening so it was easy to think ‘ what ’ s the point in spending time and money promoting services ?’
44 — July