Marketing Your Business – Do You Have a Schedule?
What portion of your time do you spend marketing your business?
“Marketing? Why do I need to do marketing when I have an online business?â€Â If you said this to yourself, you are not alone.
When I started my online business I came from a corporate background and Direct Sales was my part-time fun job. In my experience in the corporate world Marketing was a separate department, except for one job where I was required to submit editorials to high-end office furniture magazines, and track the progress of paid advertisements.
As a Skin Care and Image Consultant I was taught to offer my business cards or share information on my business with at least three persons every day – a form of marketing. And it worked! But my online business…why?
Not having a schedule for marketing is a huge mistake or omission many of us who start an online business make. In fact, this is not limited to online business. Many small business owners who have a brick and mortar store, that is, any type of location where you can walk in and do business, make a similar mistake. Often they depend on ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing or advertising with no system in place to support and track it. They have no plan on how they will target their marketing to attract more business from their current customers or clients, nor do they have a system to target and attract new customers or clients.
The following three points are important considerations for small business owners – offline and/or online:
1)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The #1 skill you need to learn in order to be a successful entrepreneur is marketing!
2)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â You must market your business consistently and have a marketing schedule or calendar to keep track of your strategies and results.
Note “strategiesâ€, which means that for success you will need to vary the types of marketing you do as what will appeal to one segment of your market may not appeal to the other.
3)           Experts teach that as an online business owner 80% of your time should be spent marketing. When I heard this I was shocked because at the time I’d not been doing any type of marketing that came close to that figure. How about you? Do you have a schedule for marketing your business?
What types of marketing strategies can online business owners implement? How about local businesses?
Most small businesses fail to schedule (almost everything) properly. Marketing, accounting, customer service needs to be performed at least weekly. A reminder- with a click off when accomplished- needs to be incorporated into every small businessperson’s toolbox.
1Yvonne has the right post for all of us.
So true! Marketing is the key to success. Good points!
2Marketing online is extremely important. I was a corporate gal too Yvonne, and back in those days it was a lot of person to person contact and conversation. Remember the 2 hour lunches?!
Today’s online marketing should most importantly include social networking. It is a way to ‘connect’ with others without actually seeing them in person. So your profile, company information, your logo and image should be consistent and professional.
Scheduling is another important aspect to online marketing. And as you say Yvonne, testing is just as important. I am glad that you discussed this topic and it seems your insight is spot on!
3Hi Yvonne,
80%… wow! Now if we all did that, just think about how quickly our businesses would skyrocket!
I can’t say I come close either, although it is common sense to make that your number one priority… that’s how you bring in the customers and money.
Your point about “strategies” and how you need varied approaches. That’s a great piece of advice right there. Often we get stuck on one or two approaches and don’t try other things. If you don’t try new things, how do you know what works the best?
4Roy: I love the way you nail the points, but it is true that small businesses, especially those of us with an online business, tend to forget that the rules of business apply to us too, and it really starts with having the right mindset.
5Sharon: Thank you. As business people it’s so important to identify the keys that will lead to our success.
Lynn: Valuable summary of how our perspective must change from the employee mindset to the employer/owner mindset. Thank you for mentioning those points.
Deb: You’re so right…our business would skyrocket and the proof is there because my Mentor who shared that info markets a lot and she reaps the success that comes from consistent effort. I’m working on my own marketing schedule to make sure I’m doing it consistently and not hit and miss. 🙂