Many businesses fail to treat marketing as an investment, regarding it purely as an overhead rather than something on which a return must be achieved. One of the reasons for this is that their marketing effectiveness is substantially reduced by their inability to create balanced campaigns.

Starting Out

New businesses often fall into the trap of under-investing in marketing activities and then find themselves relying on a single campaign to try and kick-start their business.

Two Examples

1. The hair and beauty salon that spent its entire marketing budget on a glitz launch event with a celebrity guest. They then lacked the funds for the local advertising and voucher campaigns that would have created the sustained activity they needed. The business folded after less than 6 months.

2. The firm that bought a list of 4,000 names 4 weeks before an event and then emailed and cold called people who had never heard of them to try and drum up support for a ½ day seminar in office hours. Fortunately their own database of people who already knew them generated the delegates they needed to make the event a success.

Big Brands – Big Spend

Whilst our own budgets may seem pitiful in comparison with Coca-Cola and Vodafone, there is a lot we can learn from the big brands – especially when it comes to the design of campaigns that build awareness and go on to generate business.

Direct Marketing Response Rates

Depend on many things, including relevance and timing. However, response rates can be improved 100 fold if awareness is already positive. To achieve this, think about building your reputation with your target audience before you start your direct marketing campaigns.

Follow-Through

We all know that to blow your entire budget on an opening event leaving nothing in the coffers for follow-up is foolish. Human ego is easily deceived into going for the big splash without working on the long term awareness and brand building that we will rely on for our prosperity.

Trust YOUR Brand

Most small businesses can only sell their products and services to people who trust them. It takes time to establish trust. Once some people trust you, then asking for referrals from existing clients is an essential to start the process of building your own brand.

Just how much people must trust us before they will make their first purchase from us depends very much on the business. The level of trust required of a professional will always be greater than from a news-paper vendor.

Get Help

As in all things related to business. Know your limits and get professional help with designing your campaign. Do not resort to “Spray and Pray” because you believe that is all you can afford.

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of SPS who are a national team of proven senior management professionals, passionate about working to help businesses achieve their next level of development and performance. Whether they are facing market changes, financial problems, people/skills issues, or are preparing a major project, they offer dedicated support from a multi-disciplined team of experts.

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