Challenges for small business when it comes to marketing
Let's get straight to the point. There are many challenges that small businesses face when it comes to marketing - and much of it is internal.
Small businesses:
1. Argue, challenge and brainstorm in June and December each year about what they are going to do for marketing in the year ahead. . . and end up doing nothing.
Small businesses:
1. Argue, challenge and brainstorm in June and December each year about what they are going to do for marketing in the year ahead. . . and end up doing nothing.
2. Attempt to get not just management, but the entire team on the same page (and buy in to the marketing strategy) in relation to sales and marketing because they want to grow.
3. Get advice--sometimes conflicting--from friends, clients, half-baked marketing practitioners, freelancers and marketing firms only to be left confused and end up going with the person they 'like' the look of instead of going with the right person for the job.
4. End up stuck in their ways, caught in a direction, without really understanding the changing dynamics of their customer base.
5. Put conducting a survey with customers and staff to the backend because management thinks they already know it all. (Guess what? We don't!)
6. Still believe in the last year's marketing plan that they got off the Internet, but cannot quite figure why it didn't work.
7. Think that they are too small to have marketing, but might try Facebook and Twitter this year.
8. Try cold calling (the secretary did it), advertising (the sales rep was nice and offered a discount), yellow pages (can't understand why it worked 10 years ago, but isn't achieving the same results today), public relations (found a blog on the web, so rang up a journalist who said they would think about writing a story and didn't), direct mail (a flier done by an adhoc agency known to the staff) and website building (no faith in it; no-one ever emails from the website asking for anything other than whether you want to buy cheap viagra or perhaps a wife online).
Funnily enough, this is probably 99% of small businesses. The other 1% drive their brands, dominate their market and create sales opportunities strategically achieving their company's goals.
Funny that!
This is why there will always be a market for 'Marketing Eye'. ;)
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24 Apr 2014You are my breathing in, I own few blogs and rarely run out from post :). "No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible." by W. H. Auden.
ReplyLauren
20 Jun 2011I definitely agree with the fact that many small businesses often overlook their marketing efforts or choose the 'simplest / cheapest option' without extensive research into their customers’ needs and understand how to reach them. This further highlights the importance of businesses understanding their customers and further identifying how their business can be of value to them. Quite often, with the rapid changes in technology and the economy, customers needs change and businesses need to continuously monitor this so they can tailor their marketing efforts to reach all potential and existing customers and get the most out of their finances directed at marketing. Having an extensive marketing strategy for any small business is essential to aid growth and achieve strategic goals and Marketing Eye definitely proves this.
ReplyLauren
20 Jun 2011I definitely agree with the fact that many small businesses often overlook their marketing efforts or choose the 'simplest / cheapest option' without extensive research into their customers’ needs and understand how to reach them. This further highlights the importance of businesses understanding their customers and further identifying how their business can be of value to them. Quite often, with the rapid changes in technology and the economy, customers needs change and businesses need to continuously monitor this so they can tailor their marketing efforts to reach all potential and existing customers and get the most out of their finances directed at marketing. Having an extensive marketing strategy for any small business is essential to aid growth and achieve strategic goals and Marketing Eye definitely proves this.
ReplyLauren
20 Jun 2011I definately agree with the fact that many small businesses often overlook their marketing efforts or choose the 'simplist / cheapest option' without extensive research into their customers needs and understand how to reach them. This further highlights the importance of businesses understanding their customers and further identifying how their business can be of value to them. Quite often, with the rapid changes in technology and the economy, customers needs change and businesses need to continuously monitor this so they can tailor their marketing efforts to reach all potential and exisitng customers and get the most out of their finances directed at marketing. Having an extensive marketing strategy for any small business is essential to aid growth and acheive strategic goals and Marketing Eye definately proves this.
ReplySarah-Jo
20 Jun 2011Sad but true... Most small businesses greatly undervalue marketing as an important function for their company to engage in. However isn't a lot of marketing in small business centred around trying to generate positive WOM (word of mouth)? How do we "market the importance of marketing", marketing in a more holistic way to small businesses?
Replynathan
16 Jun 2011Jumping straight to the final product, without considering the appropriate steps leading up to it.
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