If there is one thing that the Global Financial Crisis demonstrated, it is that businesses big and small were not immune to the damaging and disastrous effects of the economical upheaval.
One of the vital lessons many business owners have learned about small business survival as a result of the GFC relates to marketing. Key to that survival involves implementing smart marketing strategies specifically focused on growing profits without dependence upon expensive advertising.
For decades, there has been a misguided perception about the necessity of advertising. What's more, there has been and still remains a blurred and fuzzy understanding held by business owners about what advertising is... exactly.
Still, many business owners speak confusingly about marketing and advertising, speaking as if these are interchangeable processes in business. The distinctions between marketing and advertising could not be further apart.
Marketing is the umbrella term for all things connected to promoting your business. Everything you do, from distribution, pricing and communication to point of sale, all fall under the banner of marketing.
Advertising is also one of the actions you take that sits under the marketing umbrella. Your efforts to tell potential customers about your products and services, including use of telephone directories, newspaper classifieds, television prime space, is all advertising. It's the way you go about telling customers your business exists. Once you've told them, your actions to get them to buy which includes the pricing and distribution is all marketing.
Surviving in the roller coaster economy requires that you take stock of all your marketing efforts since launching your business; you need to evaluate all these efforts, searching for the result-producing marketing actions; determine your expense in using these particular marketing options and work out the cost of acquisition Vs the spend value of your customer; and lastly, you need to really analyse the cost-effectiveness of any traditional advertising against alternative methods for promoting your business.
Remember, customer acquisition (getting the clients to come to you for the first time) is considerably more expensive to your business than the cost of customer retention (keeping the same customers buying from you time and again, or referring others to you).
The Profit Frog's specialist marketing focuses on developing customized marketing plans specifically for your business. Each step is exactly what your business requires, and each process develops existing assets in your business designed to generate profit within as little as 90 days. More importantly there is no dependence upon expensive advertising. This is true marketing at its finest - for your small business success.
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