A Question of Priorities

Why Small Businesses Can’t Afford to Treat Marketing as an Afterthought

For many small businesses, marketing can often be treated as something that happens when there is time, on a reactive and not pro-active basis. The problem is that marketing rarely works well when it is treated as an afterthought.

A new service or product is launched, so an update is bolted on to the website. Business slows down, so a flurry of media posts are published. There is an upcoming event, so an email is quickly put together. Then, as operational pressures increase, marketing, understandably, moves lower down the list of priorities. Small-business owners need to manage customers, sales, people, finance, operations and growth. Marketing can easily feel like something that can wait where core delivery is pre-eminent in your concerns.

Underlying this is often the misconception that marketing’s only purpose is to generate immediate sales, however, good marketing does much more in terms of building and sustaining brand awareness, communicating what makes your business different in a competitive market and establishing both credibility and trust. Good marketing will not only “announce”, but will keep you consistently visible to both prospective and existing customers.

In this respect, marketing is an ongoing business function, not simply an ad-hoc campaign that can simply be switched on and off and where inconsistency can result in a business becoming invisible between sales opportunities. Perhaps look at your successful competitors who communicate consistently, as they may well be drawing attention from you and steadily building customer confidence.

For a small business, taking on marketing yourself can initially seem like the pragmatic and more cost-effective solution if you are capable of producing a post, drafting an e-shot or designing an advert using the myriad free tools and platforms available. However, a key consideration isn’t necessarily the cost of creating your own post or collateral, but the cost of everything you need to do in terms of development versus the capacity needed to operate the business. How much time is spent deciding what to say? Which audience is being targeted? What should be posted and where? What does success or ROI look like? How does it connect to the wider business strategy? Critically, there is also an opportunity cost: what will happen when the business gets busier?

If you’re at the stage where this is an issue, it’s time to take a step back and acknowledge that although marketing activity is essential, it is not the strategy itself. The objective isn’t to do more marketing, but better, sustainable marketing delivered under a strategy which recognises that although the business may not necessarily need a full-time marketing department, it may well need marketing expertise.

That is where fractional marketing support can be particularly valuable in looking at the bigger picture and delivering consistently in terms of objectives, proposition, focus, measurement – and importantly – resource. This can give a small business access to the kind of strategic thinking that might otherwise only be available to much larger organisations on a basis which allows flexibility, experience and objectivity.

Your marketing deserves the same level of planning and attention as other important areas of the business. Taking a considered and strategic approach means understanding that reputation, visibility and customer relationships are commercial assets, and realising the benefit of when to bring in the right expertise at the right time.

For some businesses, that might eventually mean employing a full-time marketing manager or building an internal team. For others, a combination of internal resource, specialist freelancers and fractional leadership may be the better approach.

Your approach to marketing shouldn’t be an afterthought; it is a core function of growth to be considered at a strategic and fundamental level. If you feel it’s time to talk about the best way forward, contact us: enquiries@latitudeonline.co.uk