If you are a small business owner, you have most likely worn a lot of hats. Whether it be the accountant, business development manager, public relations officer, company owner, and sometimes the hardest of all, head of marketing. Marketing can sometimes be daunting for small businesses. You know you have a great product or service, but you don’t know how to tell other people about it. Getting your company on the map takes time, but it doesn’t have to be impossible or done on your own.
As a small business owner, you have dedicated your time to building something you truly love. A company that is yours. A project you built from the ground up. At times it might have been stressful, and at other times you may have even wanted to give up. Because small business owners often start off doing every task on their own for their company, stress can pile up fast. Marketing is one of the last essential details you have to accomplish. Once you have your product or service, you then face the struggle of showing others the value you now bring to the table. As a small business owner, you live by the saying “Do it yourself,” so here are a few solutions to show how to eliminate the stress and headache that comes with this individual workload that is marketing as a small business.
In order to reduce stress in marketing your small business, you first have to look at what makes it difficult. DIY marketers said “Marketing overwhelm is caused by willy nilly marketing actions, instead of being clear about how those actions will help you reach your marketing goals. Simply knowing you want more leads isn’t really a marketing goal. That’s like saying I want my car to have tires. Eliminating marketing overwhelm is all about making choices and focusing on the actions that will take you closer”. Once you have identified what causes marketing to become difficult, then you can create a plan of attack to lower the stress and sometimes remove it altogether.
Ever heard the saying “work smarter not harder”? There are many tools for marketing that can help you do just that. While these tools are not meant to take over every aspect of marketing, they can serve as a catalyst to expedite your marketing. So, what are they?
Running a small business takes long enough as is. As a business owner, you want to do everything the right way and at the right time. So, here are a few ways you can start to establish your marketing.
Establish your goals: Determine what you want to get out of marketing. Do you want more search traffic online? Or do you simply want to get the word about your company? Create goals for your marketing. This allows you to create plans of action to move forward. Start with a question, and then you can find the answers.
Finally, take the time to plan out your marketing. Just like you would budget and take time to work on your products and services, you should set time aside to create a marketing plan and take steps to put it into action.