Marketing is a huge hurdle for many business owners. They may be great at what they do and entrepreneurial by nature however, marketing is a honed skill set quite different than owning the business.
The skill set required is huge, and can involve:
- graphic design
- writing
- research
- creative ideas
- platform expertise
- web design
- web development
- analytics
- newsletters
- ecommerce
- online courses
- SEO
- social strategy…
Over the years, I have found that small business owners are a little too close to the business they run. When marketing, It’s important to have a “newbie” approach. What do you do? Why do I need it? How will it help/benefit me? The mistake business owners can make is using industry jargon, talking like the audience already understands their business (remember marketing is to attract new people to your business) and failing to realize what the rest of the world needs to know about them.
That’s where a marketing professional comes in, helping you break down the marketing message based on what the goal is. Guiding you step by step through the thought process:
What do people need to know about your business?
Develop a long list of benefit statements about the product or service.
Develop messaging to drive the consumer to the goal
Creatively present the message on the platform.
Small business owners typically start with social media and a website which is great. Neither of these on their own will grow the business unless they are used properly. Gone are the days of put up a website and business will come. When you can afford it, plan to hire a professional to build your responsive website properly with content management software (we recommend WordPress), optimize for SEO and ask them how to edit the content. After a little online training you should be able to; add posts, change/add photos, update page content, add/edit/products for sale & add videos from Youtube.
The mechanics of social media are not hard but what is the strategy and what is the relevance of the messaging? Have a plan! A marketing professional can work with you to set up a strategy and marketing calendar and you can post to social or your can hire someone to do it. Be prepared to boost posts to gain new followers. If you are posting yourself, consider using one platform well, instead of many poorly. Remember quality content is essential. With the rise in AI generated text and images, examine if you are presenting an authentic image to the public. Depending on your industry, it may be important to “be real”.
Each marketing company has a unique set of skills, experience and opinions. Make sure to find the one that you feel “gets” your business and you can establish a relationship of trust and mutual benefit.
Skorski Web Design Inc.works across in Ontario from our office in Belleville, ON. We have been working with clients in full time web design, graphic design and marketing since 2004. We have built over 550 small business websites and have had the pleasure of very long client relationships.