Marketing is a vital business activity yet generally misunderstood by many business owners. You may be fantastic at what you do but unless you can market yourself or your business you’re unlikely to succeed as a business owner.
Marketing is the same as advertising
Far from it – advertising is just one type of marketing, whereas marketing is the process by which companies create customer interest in products or services. Marketing generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business development, an integrated process through which businesses build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.
Marketing is a cost
Not so, effective marketing is an investment, since the more you spend, more customers and business should be generated for your business.
You’re better off trying to reduce outgoings than working to produce more income
At the very most, you could probably cut your costs by say 25% before your business suffers to the point where it cannot function effectively and the quality of your service or products plunge. On the other hand, the potential to increase your profits by producing more sales or by higher gross profit margins is virtually unlimited.
You can delegate marketing (to an employee or marketing agency)
Marketing is so important to your business it is vital to organise this yourself, closely supervise marketing activities and spend a significant proportion of your time marketing.
You don’t have to spend much time on marketing
If you want your business to grow and be successful, you should spend a third to one-half of your time on marketing. Many business owners spend no time at all on marketing, mistakenly thinking that business and customers just roll in the door by themselves, retreating to their comfort zone of working in their business. What happens when the next recession arrives?
Marketing costs should be strictly budgeted
If you understand the lifetime value of your customers i.e. how much they are worth to you over the time they continue to buy from you (to calculate this multiply the average number of times they buy from you over the year by your average $ sale and by the number of years they stay a customer) and know how much it costs you to acquire a customer then the amount you can spend on marketing is endless providing the money you make from your customers is more than your customer acquisition cost.
If your marketing needs a boost get in touch with Nick today.
