Bill started his mortgage company because he wanted to be in control of his future and he was good at doing mortgages. Bill had never owned a business before, but thought he would just figure it out. So starting the business was exciting; writing a business plan, getting funding, choosing a location, hiring staff, buying furniture, all the fun stuff. Once he set up the business, then the question was raised, “How are we going to get customers?” And like many small business owners, Bill looked at advertising, flyers, business cards, radio ads, newspaper and spent many thousands of dollars to figure out what did and did not work. Luckily for Bill his investors had deep pockets and the economy was on his side and he made it.
But fast forward 10 years and the market is very different. Investor’s pockets are not as deep and the economy may not be helping you. As a small business owner over the past decade, times has gotten more competitive and some say it is “eat or be eatten.” And with so many challenges, it is easy to make a few wrong moves and loose a business you have worked so hard to build.
The main cause of many business fatalities is not knowing how to effectively get more clients. Although many will create a business plan, few will create a marketing plan. A marketing plan is a strategic plan of how you are going to gain awareness for your business and educate clients and customers about your products and services. Marketing includes everything from your business card to your website to advertising and social media. But marketing today is much more sophisticated than it used to be.
It used to be, just put up a website and you get calls. Today there are many more factors to consider, such as: how will your get your site noticed among the billions of other pages on the internet? And once you decide that, then who will do it? Will you do it yourself or will you hire someone? So the first fatal mistake is not having a plan and using “hope” as a strategy for business success.
The second fatal mistake, is not having a budget. When it comes to making sales whether it is for a chiropractic business or an online business, if clients do not know that you exist, they can not buy from you. And in order to have your clients know about you this will take either time or money or both. Consider the marketing strategies that require time, for example: networking, speaking engagements, educational opportunities – like webinars, and social media. They might not require lots of money, but without a small budget, none of these strategies will produce stellar results.
Let’s look at networking for example. Going to a networking event can be free or low cost, but in order to make that event productive, let’s look at the steps it really takes. First, you will want to have business cards and possibly a name tag. Once you have their business card, you will want to follow up with them and keep in touch. At least sending an email or personal card. This can be a time intensive effort and by just missing one step, like not knowing who to network with or not following up, can cost you dearly.
This brings us to many business owner’s third fatal mistake, they don’t take time to learn how to market or sell their products. Even if you get the other 2 steps right, this alone can stop you in your tracks. Suppose you have a plan and reasonable budget, it is very easy waste TONS of money on marketing and not get results. For example, let’s say you decide to place an ad in a local newspaper and in your excitement, you don’t put a compelling offer in the ad. Your ad just says who you are and your phone number. Three months later, you have spent almost a thousand dollar and you are frustrated that didn’t work. So you try another paper and another and before you know it, nothing seems to work. The problem is not the media’s, but the marketing strategy. Without a compelling message, a trackable ad, and correct placement, you can quickly drain even deep pockets.
This leads us to our fourth mistake, not tracking where your clients are coming from. Let’s say that you have deep pockets and you are marketing your business everywhere. The calls start coming in and before you know it, your business is growing. But then a hiccup occurs: the city decides to do road maintenance right in front of your business and the business slows down. Now with a smaller budget, you can not market like you did before, but you don’t know where your clients came from so you are left to guess where to spend your smaller budget. Guess wrong, and this might mean the end. Business development should not be left up to guessing. Tracking your business is critical to the success of your business, but in our excitement we often forget to track what generated the business leaving us guessing what worked.
And finally, the fifth mistake is not optimizing your marketing. Once you do track your business, then it is time to review which marketing efforts are creating the best results. This is easy to do when you have the data. Track the following information per campaign: new contacts (people who contact you from the efforts of that campaign), new clients that you get from that campaign, cost of the campaign and revenue generated from the campaign. These four numbers will reveal the insight to what is really working.
So to give your business the best boost, following these 5 steps:
1. Plan your marketing
2. Have a budget
3. Learn the basics of marketing
4. Track your results
5. Optimize your marketing.
Kimberly Deas a marketing consultant and the founder of PromozillaMarketing.com, an online marketing tool that educated and trains small business owners on how to successfully market their business with over 170 different marketing ideas to choose from.
. They have offered something that will catch their target markets attention – free steak. I love steak and it got my attention and I even shared it with others.
