Top tips for marketing your small or medium business
Marketing a small or medium business has its own set of challenges and opportunities. The last thing you want to do is waste time, money and the chance to stand out by merely cutting and pasting a big company strategy onto a small company requirement.
Here are five issues to consider when you set out to create a marketing strategy and plan for your small or medium-sized business. These apply equally well to start-ups.
1. SKILL SET
Be clever about getting the right skill set on board. As a business owner, you need to focus on what you do best and not be distracted by writing brochures or press releases. You need to bring in the right specialist skills and the correct level of experience, at the right price.
Be careful about appointing a junior general marketer who will need a lot of hand-holding from you, and won’t have the breadth and depth of experience to cope with your company’s specific requirements.
You need a range of strategic and implementation skills, to work with someone who can manage themselves, and also look to the future to lay the foundations for growth. They also can’t be loath to get their hands dirty, down in the trenches.
If you take the agency route, which is a good option for getting a range of skills with a single price-tag, watch out for agencies used to working with the resources and expectations of a large company.
Ideally appoint an agency or a consultant used to dealing with smaller companies and their requirements. Hiring a freelancer who works for more than one company is a great way to get the experience and skill set you require, at a price that suits your pocket. An added bonus is the potential synergies with the contractor’s other clients.
2. FOCUS
You will be presented with a range of typical and not-so-typical activities and channels to reach your customers. Choose two or three of the activities and channels that make most sense, and then focus your marketing efforts on owning these.
Also keep your customer front of mind. Twitter might be the hottest topic in social media and marketing at the moment, but if your customers are mostly reading text email using a dial-up connection - you’ll be better off sending them a simple email newsletter, letting them know about special offers.
Keep sales and marketing tightly connected and focussed on the same thing. You can’t waste valuable budget on teams not being aligned and chasing the same goal.
3. MESSAGING ON THE FLY
You will end up creating branding and messaging on the fly. It’s not ideal, but it’s inevitable. As a start-up or a smaller company you need to get out there, talking to the market, and can’t afford to spend three months sitting around a board-room table, fine-tuning the most exquisitely crafted message and brand strategy.
However, don’t let your need for speed mean you don’t ever take time out focus on your branding and messaging to make sure it’s coherent, accurate and on track. Spend time once a month to reflect on how your messaging and brand is developing, and if you need to tweak, change track or emphasise any aspects.
4. KEEP IT UP
Understand that building and marketing a brand is not an overnight activity, nor can it be turned on and off like a tap. You need a sustained, coherent programme of activities that builds momentum.
So don’t be tempted to opt for quick wins. It will be more cost-effective in the long run to run a steady strategic PR campaign that builds momentum over three to six months, than to dedicate all your resources to a high profile advert that has a shelf life of less than a month, if it gets seen at all.
5. DUCK, DIVE AND HAVE FUN
Embrace the benefits of being small, nimble and able to react quickly by experimenting and trying something out of the ordinary. If it doesn’t work out, you can quickly correct the situation with minimum exposure, and if it’s a great success, you can do more of the same. Don’t act like a lumbering, slow to change direction oil tanker, when in fact you are a nippy speedboat.
