You already know that starting a business is hard work. It doesn’t stop once you have it going either. Marketing is a job that you must consistently work hard at to market your small business. Here are 10 reasons why you have to go through the struggle.
1. You Don’t Have a Lot Of Money or Time
Time and money seem to go hand in hand. You need to spend money in order to make money. This involves having the staff to take on the many tasks you need to run and advertise your business. A larger organization would pay for expensive web designs and large print and online advertising techniques.
2. There is Always Something to Do
Your time is limited as it is, however, you will find you are working harder at marketing because there is always one other thing that must be done. You intend to complete a marketing task, such as setting up your Tweets and Facebook posts for the week, but by noon, there is a list of other marketing strategies that must be implemented first. You will find yourself working well through the night hours sometimes trying to get it all done.
3. Technology Consistently Changes
You already must work at keeping up with industry changes. However, with marketing, it is just as bad, especially when it comes to SEO marketing. Just when you have just learned what keyword analytics involved, Google changes the game on you. There will always be bigger and better solutions being implemented. Keeping up with them becomes a daunting task because you are a business owner, not a marketing specialist. As pointed out, you need the funds to hire someone else to keep up with the changing marketing technologies.
4. You Don’t Have the Tools and Software
Many marketing programs and companies exist and you truly will see your ROI in a short period. But yet again, it takes money to invest in these tools and software. It’s true that you can find great marketing tools that are free, but there are always caveats.
They may dangle a free 30-day trial or only half of their system will work for you until you upgrade. These marketing platforms can help with your keywords, analytics, reporting, and social media planning and scheduling. Without them, it’s a long and drawn out manual process.
5. Your Competitors Are Very Good at What They Do
You really can’t blame your competitors for making marketing look easy. The truth is, at one point, they were in the same boat as you. Your larger competitors have been around for years and have invented your industry’s marketing tactics. This is making it difficult for you because you need to grow and get where they are.
The more their marketing team effectively moves their company up the ranks on Google’s search results, the more difficult it will be for you to catch up. They are the reason your main keyword could drive business to you. However, their website, their blog, and their social media sites contain those very same keywords.
6. You Are Not Consistent
Without having the time to perform your marketing strategies, you won’t be consistent. You need consistency when networking and building your relationships with your customers via social media sites. If you have a blog, which you should, you need to be able to devote time to updating your blog with quality content. You should be able to engage and respond to comments your customers leave on your blog in a timely manner.
7. You Are Lacking Team Members
You can’t expect to run your small business like a Fortune 500 company. As a small business, it may be just you or two other individuals. You all need to wear multiple hats to get the job done. You need team members to carry out various accounting, sales, marketing, and information technology tasks.
However, if you don’t have the funds to hire the staff in, most of the work falls on the staff that does exist. If you are hired in for information technology and must assist with sales, there is not only a learning curve, but it takes away from your assigned duties. Everyone will need to put forth triple the effort in order to make up for the lack of team members.
8. You Must Make a Sale
Granted, you need customers to buy your products and services; however, you also need to make them recognize why they should. The best way is to position yourself as their number one resource and be the industry leader they are looking for. This requires a lot of relationship building that you may feel you don’t have the time to do.
9. You Have a Small Website
Congratulations are in order if you have a website and blog together. You still must work hard to keep them optimized and have fresh and consistent content on them. You must work at driving traffic to your site, filling those pages with service information, white papers, videos, and client testimonials.
10. You Are Lacking Brand Recognition
Unfortunately, by not being a household name like your major competitors, you may find in your marketing efforts you refer to your competitors. By lacking brand recognition, you are giving some type of recognition to a competitor such as “My company does XYZ, similar to company ABC”. At that point, you need to capture your audience and for this you need the assistance of a company like print-print.co.uk that can make them realize they should give you a chance as you might only get one opportunity to do so.