Why Marketing is SO Difficult for Small Businesses

Gary-Vaynerchuk

For most small businesses, marketing is REALLY difficult.

Companies who get the most value from marketing, are those who:

  • Spend a lot of money over a long period of time
  • Use an omni-channel approach (traditional and non-traditional)
  • Have a superior product with a clear UVP
  • Have a large enough team to tap into strategic, creative, and executional talent (specialists vs generalists)
  • Are relentless (aka consistent)
  • Use data to refine and optimize efficiency with their team and budget

 

Overtime, you will see the fruits of your marketing efforts.

Small businesses with a marketing team of 1, with no budget, no sales team, have so few leads that data is irrelevant, don’t have the resources to be everywhere so they choose 1-2 channels, or do little drips and drabs on multiple channels… this is a recipe for disaster.

Is marketing still necessary?

Small companies like this need to be more sales led, or product led, than marketing led, because I can tell you, marketing will become the arts and crafts department, keeping the lights on, but it will hardly move the needle in terms of sales and revenue.

They are still necessary, but it’ll be tough to rely on them alone to scale your business.

Don't Make This Mistake

  • You start a company.
  • Maybe secure a little funding, or bootstrap until you get your first few clients.
  • You gain your first few clients through referral and you’re off to the races.
  • You hire a bunch or staff and get more referrals and renewals.
  • You may even be able to go 2, 3, 4 years on this momentum alone.
 
Here’s the problem.
 
Unless you’ve invested in repeatable pipeline generation, you may reach a point where you don’t have enough new business to sustain and it’s too late to start sales and marketing.
 
Outside of your network, nobody knows who you are.
 
You haven’t been running paid media, aren’t doing SEO, your social media strategy is underachieving, haven’t invested in the team, process, and tools to prospect and build your funnel.
 
A few bad months forces you to layoff your staff, desperately do anything you can to generate leads, mostly by throwing money at a problem (a new hire, a new tool, a new tactic) but it’s often too little too late. These motions take time to get off the ground and you don’t have enough runway to see them take off.
 
 

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If you’re looking to make a move with your marketing, reach out to us. We are priced fairly, we’re straight shooters, and are the very best at what we do.

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