How much marketing advice do you think the owner or marketing director of a small business is exposed to? Honestly, I don’t know. But, I do know that it’s often more than they can possibly hope to digest and put into action.
When I talk to MDs of ambitious small businesses, they are not short on ideas – for marketing (or anything else for that matter). What they are short on is confidence. Knowing which ideas they should put their time, money and energy into for best results is the real problem.
A quick search on the term ‘lead generation’ will return thousands of suggestions (about 175,000,000 in fact!): telemarketing, social media, content marketing, public relations, events, SEO… your budget could be blown in a millisecond. So, let’s look at some ways to unpick it all and know what your business really needs.
Four tips for knowing whether a marketing investment is right for your business:
When it comes to assessing whether or not to invest in a marketing initiative there are a few rules of thumb that I use with my clients.
1. Is it a Bucket, a Funnel or a Tap?
Picturing your new business process as made up of these three parts will help you to see broadly what task a particular marketing tool or technique is addressing. If the investment doesn’t do one of these jobs, or you’re doing all of one and none of the other, don’t do it.
2. Do you have a next step in place
Marketing budgets are most often wasted when an expensive Tap is left running with nothing to Funnel the interest. You should always have mapped how a person can make their whole journey through a buying decision. Every marketing investment should be a stepping-stone in a complete path from Awareness to Loyalty. If you don’t have a next step, don’t do it.
3. Can you maintain the momentum?
Real returns on marketing happen when you commit to maintaining momentum. Awareness and goodwill take time to build up. Little and often is almost always more effective in the long term than a big bang campaign. If you can’t commit to an ongoing level of marketing, don’t do it.
4. Can you make more from it?
The very best marketing investments are those that keep on giving. Like, great content. There are hundreds of ways to re-use most marketing materials, and in many cases it can be re-used over months, if not years. If you can’t think of ways to keep using the marketing material you’re considering, don’t do it.
In my book, Watertight Marketing, I provide an end-to-end blueprint to guide you through choosing the right marketing tools and techniques to support sales results for your business.
© Bryony Thomas
Bryony Thomas
Author & Founder, Watertight Marketing
Bryony Thomas is the creator of the multi-award winning Watertight Marketing methodology, captured in her best-selling book of the same name. She is one of the UK's foremost marketing thinkers, featured by the likes of Forbes, The Guardian, Business Insider and many more, and in-demand speaker for business conferences, in-house sales days and high-level Board strategy days.
