Marketing Your Small Business If You Don’t Have Time

Many small business owners that I speak to don’t have time to do any marketing for their business.

The problem is they also don’t want to pay someone to do it for them, as they don’t see the value, or they’ve been burnt in the past or both.

So what is marketing and why should you bother doing it? (read more)

Simple answer, marketing is the lifeblood of every business large and small.

If you’re not promoting your message to your potential audience then how do you expect leads to come into your business?

Weirdly enough, if someone types into google the keyword of the solution that you offer, if your website is not optimised, you are unlikely to appear.

If someone goes to your Facebook personal page and they can’t see a link to your website, they won’t go and look for your website.

Am I painting a picture here?

Marketing is the bit you do before sales and after-sales and before sales and after-sales and so on and so forth.

If you are trying to market too many services that could also be a time thief for you, luckily I wrote about that here

So how can you market your small business if you don't have time?

Collaboration - Join forces with a company who complement your products and services, so for example, if you are a therapist that helps people with stress and relaxation techniques.

You could not partner up with someone who sells oils or scented candles. 

If you both have an email list you could send a mailer out to your list promoting the other services and don’t forget you could also share news about each other on your social media platforms

Get some User Generated Content

Talking of social media, have you thought of asking or encouraging your customers to create content to post on your social media platforms.

You could ask for check-in’s or a video testimonial or written review.

So for example, if you were a fitness instructor, you could ask your students to use before and after photo’s to show people how effective you are with what you do.  
41% of local businesses depend on social media to drive revenue (fundera)

Ask for referrals

Customer referrals are something else that you should consider especially if you have a good CRM platform or an up to date spreadsheet. 

Just create an offer which gives your customers great value for referring and then email it out to them.  You could even run a competition amongst your customers to see who is the best referrer.

Automate some of your social media

You can easily automate some or all of your social media, using tools like IFTTT, Feedly and Buffer. 

The key to this is creating batch content, you can quickly and easily create multiple themed posts for your social media platforms using tools like canva.

Before you start creating your content it is advisable that you plan the messages that you want to share with your audience.

Be sure to accomodate for any holidays that you have booked for yourself so you can take a break from social media during holiday season.

If you can get this right you will soon be scheduling your social media posts weeks in advance. 

Get some feedback from customers or prospects

Online marketing forms like Google Forms and SurveyMonkey all you to gather data from your customers, you may find some of the feedback they provide helps you when you are thinking about what product or service to offer them in the future. 

If you have an email list I would encourage you to get started on this right away.

Create a custom email signature

Your email signature can be a very powerful tool when you are doing online marketing especially if you are active online with sending out and replying to your emails. 

That space under your name can be used to promote all or some of your online assets, whether it be your website, landing page or social media platforms.

You could also use the email signature as a place to put your client qualifying message.

Business Networking

Online and offline can be a great way to market your business, but make sure you do it properly.  It really annoys me the number of people who I see at offline networking events who don’t even have a business card or any web assets for me to look at.

 When you first go networking, no-one is going to buy off you the first time they see you. 

They are going to want to check you out first, they will maybe go to your website if you have given them a way of finding it..

If you don’t have business cards send everybody that you engage with a personal email thanking them for their time.

Online networking

is pretty much the same, don’t be that person who shouts buy my stuff and is not interested in other people.

Use your time networking online to answer questions and help others, what will happen is that some people will go and check out your Facebook personal page to see what you are all about.

If your profile has the right message which resonates with them, then they may go to your Facebook business page or website if you have provided a clear way for them to do this..

If you’re organised and the solution you provide is for a problem they are looking to solve then boom, you may have just got yourself a potential new customer.

Send regular emails to your list

Have you been collecting customer data from the very first moment you started your business?

If the answer is yes then you should be doing email marketing if you are not already.

This one method has been responsible for me generating revenue for my business almost on autopilot. 

Email is a great way to stimulate your business with new orders, get rid of excess stock or launch a fabulous new product or service

Most importantly email is great for reminding your customers that you are still in business and to think of you when they are ready to buy.

So what do you do if you’re still too busy to market your small business?

Well, this is where I would recommend looking around for someone to help you do it.

You see most small business owners never get around to having an effective marketing strategy.

This means there are always opportunities that they completely miss out on, which makes life easier for the competition.

It is not surprising when you consider how many different ways there are to market a business.

The  best thing is to choose one method of marketing and implement it in your weekly routine.

If you get some good results then look to improve on it or automate it if possible.

But if you are still time poor then just pay someone to do your small business marketing for you.

There are so many different things that you can do to market your business and it is nigh on impossible for any one individual to do them all.

So what are the benefits of paying someone else to do your small business marketing?

The biggest two benefits are time and money.

Every hour that you spend on Facebook posting and commenting is an hour that you are not actually making any money for your business.

Unless of course you already have an effective Facebook strategy, with a call to action, a funnel and an end result

If you pay yourself £25 per hour, and you spend one hour per day doing your own marketing.

Then you are costing your business £500 per month.  (£25per hour x 5 days x 4 weeks)

Likewise, if you can afford to take 20 hours a month out of your business to do marketing then you either have a very successful enterprise or you are not very busy, which probably comes down to your lack of marketing previously.

Believe me when I say it will save you money 

What to consider before you pay someone to market your business for you?

You need to make sure you know your numbers

Your website analytics can be used to measure the amount of visitors you currently get to your website from your existing marketing.

Social media analytics can be studied to measure the effectiveness of the marketing your currently doing.

The breakdown of your customers, are they subscribers or one-off purchasers, do they pay on direct debit or ad hoc, what is your average order value?

Understanding all of the above will allow you to decide on what strategy you want your hired marketer to follow and also what kpi's or targets you will put in place for them.

Quite simply you are the expert at what you do, if you have not got the time to market your business then get someone who is skilled in their field to do the marketing for you.

I understand if the vast amount of marketing advice out there can overwhelm or scare you but there are many experts in their fields that can help and guide you.

If you would like to discuss the marketing that you do in your small business then drop me line, comment below, or come and talk to me on one of my social networks.

Would You Like To Generate More Leads And Convert More Sales In Your Business?

In principle It is easy to grow your business, say the experts.

All you need to do is generate more leads and convert more sales.

But unfortunately, that is easier said than done for most small business owners.

You see most small business owners don’t understand online marketing, they constantly feel overwhelmed by the constant barrage of information that is delivered to them almost daily, and they are tired of throwing good money after bad, chasing the latest marketing trend that is going to make them millions.

Is it any wonder that most small business owners quit their business after 3 years.

Well if this is YOU, it does not have to be like this.

Take a look below at what the Love Sales Hate Selling Academy can do for you and your business

Let me help You grow your business and remove the tech overwhelm that is stopping your business growth.