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Guest post by: Helen Dowling Become an Author

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One of the questions many small business owners ask is why is my marketing not working? Many people have spent a lot of money, time and effort getting their marketing to work only to find they have little or no results. It can be very frustrating and be enough for many business owners to give up and just rely on referrals. But, you'll be glad to know that there is a reason (or actually three reasons) why marketing doesn't tend to work for small business and knowing these reasons can often mean that you can do something about it.

Let's have a look at what those reasons are:

1. Marketing doesn't just get you customers

Marketing actually has three purposes: (a) to increase the awareness of your business; (b) to establish you as an expert within your field and (c) to get you customers...obviously. But, the thing is most of the marketing methods you do are much better at achieving (a) and (b) than they are at achieving (c). There is something you need to do differently in order to actually get you customers. More about this in a minute.

2. Small business owners don't follow up

If I gave you the contact details of someone and told you that they wanted your products or services, I'm willing to bet that you'd be on the phone to them right now. But, how many of you will follow up with everyone who visits your website or everyone who you meet or don't meet at a networking event? Small business owners are fairly bad at following up consistently and with everyone and this is vital if you're going to get business.

3. Small business owners don't do as much marketing as they should

Small businesses are actually quite bad at doing marketing. As I mentioned earlier, marketing can be frustrating and not achieve all the results you'd like it to achieve. Because of that, it's very easy to give up and not do as much marketing as you should...especially when other things get in the way.

So, when business owners ask the question of why is my marketing not working, the answer usually lies in one of these three reasons. What then, can you do about this to kick start your marketing?

The first thing is to do as much marketing as you possibly can do. You should be doing something every day, even if it's just for five minutes. Any marketing you do today can take up to three months to actually have an impact, so get cracking now. If you don't know what to do, visit our website (details in the bio) and download our 50 free ways to market and promote your business.

Now...and this is the secret to marketing...in any marketing method that you do for your business, you must find a way to capture people's contact details. To do this, you could run a competition, offer a freebie, give away a CD, offer for people to sign up to your newsletter or whatever else you can think of.

If people give you their contact details in exchange for whatever you're giving away, what they are telling you is that they're interested in what you do. What you now need to do is find out how interested they are. And you do this by following up with anyone and everyone who comes remotely near your business.

If you follow this strategy, you'll find that your marketing actually starts working for you and begins to have an impact in your business.

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