Why invest in marketing - even when everything is going well?
Why invest in marketing - even when everything is going so well?
You started your new business and it couldn’t have gone better. You’re out the door, your dreams have come true, and you can barely keep up with demand.
Your business has been okay for years, but suddenly things have taken off. You made a few changes, or something around you shifted outside of your control (in a good way), and this led to a revolution in your revenue, things couldn’t be better!
With things going so well, and you being so busy, there just isn’t time to invest in any proper marketing - but why bother, everything is great!
You do your bit, someone on staff is handy with social media and you bang out the odd ad-hoc image on social media. Or you have a stab at sponsoring an ad online - that should help, right?
Some of your customers are savvy digitally, and they seek you out proactively and give you a good review here and there. Some even share your posts without there being a competition as an incentive!
But what if, when everything is flying along so nicely, this is the exact time to invest more in your planning and marketing - perhaps more than ever.
What you have right now, and you see it in those rare moments you get to reflect on it, is a special kind of capital. Beyond what your product or service is worth, you have the holy grail of business outcomes - happy customers and clients.
This capital is underpinned by one of the most powerful phenomena out there - word of mouth.
As you know better than most, word of mouth is transformative for a business, and that personal recommendation sends so many people to your offering, perhaps more than you’ll ever know.
The thing is, ‘word of mouth’ is now more than the conversations with a neighbour or sharing positive experiences with colleagues. This process of recommending something to others is now, obviously, a deeply digital process as well.
Think about your own behaviour when looking for some thing or some service - you might check the Facebook review, the Google review, a service such as TrustPilot, or the number of stars on the well established shopping platforms.
Some of you trawl these reviews - sort by size, colour, percentage of discount, ah good, 4528 five-star reviews, interesting - then you read the 23 one-star reviews… and don’t purchase!
The value in word of mouth and these digital recommendations is extraordinary, and right now, with your business doing so well, is the exact time to invest in harnessing this energy.
This need for a more proactive approach to marketing is true for a few main reasons:
This wave you are riding is very positive, and asking people for their support when they are happy is quite straight forward
Things might change for your business, and you might (will) struggle to chase these happy customers further down the line
It will help sustain the success you are experiencing, without the anxiety of wondering how long this success will last
If you have not planned for how you will deal with unhappy customers, there is a threat to the momentum generated by the others who are happy
However… the reality is that even if you think some of the information above is true, you just don’t have time to act on it. This is common across all businesses who are not used to planning for this aspect of their work.
Think about it, this is still a new landscape we are exploring, it wasn’t that long ago that your only way to find a product or service was the Yellow Pages and the local free newspaper!
Be kind to yourself, you can’t be an expert in all of this and deliver your core business function - it’s okay to invest in some support, even just for a short amount of time initially.
So, maybe now is the time to give yourself permission is let someone else in. Have a conversation, just to see what might be possible, and if you’re into it, get a plan going.
All Atom creates planning work starts with a chat in which I listen to you as you explain your situation and your business needs. I then send a no obligation proposal for you to review and we can see if there is merit in collaborating.
If you’re looking to protect your successful business, or if you want to give yourself the best chance of achieving more success, please do get in touch.
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