Tweet

Have you taken action on your marketing yet?

Written by: Helen Dowling

Article Overview: I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day about our newsletters. He said he received them and I asked him whether he found them useful. He said he did, but mentioned that 70% of what I included, he already knew.

Have you taken action on your marketing yet?

I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day about our newsletters. He said he received them and I asked him whether he found them useful. He said he did, but mentioned that 70% of what I included, he already knew. Good point, I thought - but often it's not about what you already know is it? There's very few new things in this world, so the chances are fairly high that you're going to come across what I cover somewhere else.

The point really is this - even though you heard my messages before or come across them somewhere else, have you actually done anything about it? Have you taken any action on your marketing?

Now, I know we're all busy; I know we've all got things we need to do and get on with, but if you don't take action on your marketing and put into place some of what I talk about, you're missing a massive opportunity for your business.

I'm not exaggerating when I use the word ‘massive' here. If you're getting business and you're doing little or no marketing, just imagine what could happen if you actually did some marketing?

There are usually three things that stop small businesses doing any marketing - I thought I'd cover them in this article and then (hopefully) you'll have no excuse and you'll have to get on with it.

Reason number 1 is the fear of being too busy. People really talk themselves into this one. If they got tons of new customers from doing some marketing, how would they cope with the extra workload?

I can understand this fear to some extent. After all, you may not want to take on anyone else and you may not want to get that big in your business.

But, let's also be realistic here. The chances of you being snowed under with work after doing some marketing are very remote. If you did some marketing today, it would take between 2-3 months to actually see the results of that marketing. You would also be able to see business increasing and then choose to scale down your marketing accordingly.

When people give me this reason for not doing marketing, I always tell them that we should get them to the point of being too busy first and then we'll worry about it. Getting too busy will take a lot longer than you think and doing a bit more marketing than you're doing already is unlikely to get you to the point where you need to employ someone else - it is likely just to even out the peaks and the troughs, which is probably not a bad thing.

Reason number 2 is not knowing what to do. When you first start in business, most of us try the traditional marketing methods of advertising, cold calling, direct mail or leaflet drops and networking. If these don't work as well as we want them too, it's very difficult to know what to do next.

If you're not sure what to do next to market your business, most of us fall back to relying on word of mouth and referrals in order to get business.

What if I told you that there are over 100 different methods to get business, most of which cost nothing at all to do? If you'd like to see 50 ideas to promote your business, just drop me an email - details at the bottom.

Reason number 3 is just not having any time to do marketing. This reason is an accumulation of the first two reasons - in that, because people don't know what to do and they're worried about getting too busy, marketing doesn't look very attractive to them.

Consequently many small business owners find lots of other things to do before they get on with doing any marketing. And as I said earlier in this article, if you've got customers with little or no marketing, you probably do have lots of other things to do too.

With this reason, I would suggest a couple of solutions. The first is to get yourself a marketing coach who will work with you to keep you motivated on marketing. I'm putting together a new membership group launching in 2010 called The Marketing Gym to address this very problem - more about this shortly.

The other solution is to get a company to do your marketing for you - again I'm very happy to have a chat about this - just give us a call.

The simple fact is that even though you know that you should be doing all of these things I talk about, it's hard to actually get motivated to do them. The first two reasons for not taking action are relatively easy to sort out, but if you really haven't got the time to concentrate on marketing, drop us a line. That way, your marketing will get done, leaving you time to do what your best at - running your business.

Related Articles
  “Ten Strategic Marketing Actions To Ensure Success In Your New Year, From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
  How to Guarantee Success With the Best Internet Marketing Systems! ~REVEALED
  Ten Strategic Actions To Change Your Marketing Mindset, From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  Five Daily Marketing Habits to Increase Sales
  Have You Found Any New Marketing Truths

Article Tags: conversation with someone, excuse, extent, fear, marketing, massive opportunity, number 1, reason number, small businesses, workload



Related Forum Posts
Internet Marketing - Creativity or originality would be good words. you might want to try two words; after all, you are trying to suggest a complex idea that combines at least two concepts: marketing and internet. in other words, the concept has to evoke an action (marketing), how (honestly, responsibly?) and by what means you are going to carry that action out (internet). I hope this helps; Good luck!
Re: Marketing and PR ideas related to a Credit Organization - Hello GT Bulmer! I will answer your questions with great pleasure. As we use face to face marketing, our credit agents meet our customers very often, so it isn't problem to inform them about any action or meeting and stir them to come to the meeting area. And what about visual aids- i think i don't need to use them. Because in my opinion presentation will not be interesting for them at all. I think we have to organize a concert (or an interesting action) for them, to give some prizes, to make them have a wonderful time, but do it in such an original way which will make them to remember our organization and to become very loyal to our services. That is why now my aim is to invent such an original action which will be possible in villages. Thank you very much for feedback!
How to protect my trade mark? - What affirmative action can he take, at least commercially, other than to "continue to sell online and in a small number of stores?" What if his means are limited? How much additional burden on the trademark holder, who has already jumped through the hoops of registration and is actually marketing his product, is it fair to place? Trademark registration, to have any value, surely ought to amplify a trademark's holder's ability to defend his/her mark. But if a mark is continually vulnerable to attack from those with deeper pockets, then registration would appear to have little evident or useful purpose, except among like-sized, or similarly endowed entities. But if you mean that he ought to take legal action rather than commercial action, does not the same rule apply: that whoever can pay the most generally will win? How this fosters a healthy public policy environment is difficult to discern. Would not a system of bribery ultimately be more efficient and predictable, if not more honest in the naive sense?
Re: Quote of the Day - "Don't sit down and wait for the opportun - Opportunity is definitely an action term. Even when we realize a great opportunity, nothing happens unless we take action.
Re: Best way to start a business? - It really just comes down to decision, action and persistence. You can spend a lifetime thinking about doing something, and researching it, to decide if it is the right action to take. Or you can make a decision about something you want to achieve, take action and be persistent. Make a plan of action, and adjust it as you learn more. An online business is something you should jump into straight away. The time it takes to start a new website is minutes, so there is not much of a barrier to entry for you to start a basic website and learn. Obviously if your idea was more specific like starting a review comparison site for laptops then your action would be trying out and comparing different review platforms, classifying laptops etc. But you would still take action and dive right in. If it was an offline business then it would likely mean even more preparation. Say you wanted to start a wine shop, which would eventually become a chain, you would start by taking action and learning as much about wine as possible, networking with people in the industry and generally working to become a win expert, and research locations for your first wine shop. In each situation you make a decision about what you want to do, act on that decision following a rough plan which you adjust along the way, and be persistent in working to achieve what you laid out in your original decision.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

The Digital Diet by Daniel Sieberg

Selling On Ebay The Good The Bad And The Ugly

What Is The Foundation for Your Vision?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.