subject: Marketing your small business [print this page] Marketing your small business Marketing your small business
Marketing your small business
Statistics indicate that 80% of small businesses fail in the first five years due to a lack of planning. Avoid becoming part of statistics by creating and implementing a well thought-through marketing strategy.
All businesses have one goal in common: to make money. Effective marketing helps produce more sales, which in turn leads to increased profits. Having a marketing strategy (and implementing the strategy) is especially important for small businesses to help them stay competitive in their market sector. In addition, a marketing strategy helps take away some of the uncertainty caused by uncontrollable environmental factors that influence business - for example the economy, technology and competition.
Small businesses can't advertise the same way as big businesses do. Big businesses build awareness for their brand through advertising campaigns and as such generate future sales, whilst small businesses have to focus on producing sales now. In most cases small businesses have one advantage: their customers know and trust them. Word-of-mouth is the best marketing tool available to small businesses, which means that customer relations are extremely important. This will help you attract more customers, increase sales with existing ones and keep customers returning to buy more of your products and services.
Implementing a marketing strategy is an ongoing process which needs to be evaluated and tweaked constantly to ensure marketing results. In most small businesses the business owner fulfills more than one role and this may result in marketing taking a back seat. Even though the business owner realise ongoing marketing plays an integral part in growing the business in most cases there is not enough time in a day to work on implementing the marketing strategy. This is where Twenty3Media comes in, we act as your Marketing Manager and will liaise with you to conseptualise a marketing strategy and implementation plan. Have a marketing question? Ask us!
