Why Marketing Feels So Hard for Small Businesses
If you’re trying to work out how to do marketing for a small business, you’re not alone.
Whether you call yourself a sole trader, a one-man-band, a microbusiness, or an SME — and the responsibility for marketing falls on your shoulders, it can feel like a lot.
This is especially true if you’ve got very little experience of marketing from your previous roles.
Let’s face it, you’ve set up a business doing something you’re great at. If you were great at marketing, you’d have set up a marketing business.
You have to work out what marketing to do, learn how to do it, and run your business (and you’re probably doing your bookkeeping, your admin, and a squillion other things too).
So, when your small business marketing doesn’t bring in loads of sales, it’s easy to get disillusioned.
I’ve spent 31 years working in marketing. So I DID set up a marketing business.
I understand exactly what makes marketing so hard for small business owners. And I’m all about making it easier.
Why Most Small Business Marketing Doesn’t Work
People think marketing is just about promoting their business, and jump straight into social media, email marketing, or networking etc. But there’s so much more to marketing than that, and if you don’t get the basics sorted first, it will:
- Feel hard
- Feel inconsistent
- Be difficult to convert enquiries into sales.
What is Small Business Marketing?
It’s the process of getting people ready to buy. It means giving them the all the information the need, and making the right emotional connection, so that when you make your offer, they’re ready to buy from you.
Don’t Start Marketing Until You Get These 4 Things Right
This is the foundation of a simple marketing strategy for a small business.
Get these four fundamentals right, and everything else becomes easier.
Skip them, and your marketing will always feel like hard work.
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Set Clear Business Goals
If you don’t have goals for your business, how do you know what you need to do?
Your goals don’t need to be complicated or full of business jargon and buzz words. You’re a small business owner. You want to make money to create a life you actually want to live.
Work out what that lovely life looks like and use that to form your goals.
If you need £60k to cover school uniforms, holidays and pension contributions, that’s your profit goal.
From there, you can work out:
- What turnover you need
- How many clients you need to make that turnover.
Once you know how many sales you need, you know what your marketing has to do for you.
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Define Your Target Market
Do not try to sell to everyone. If you do, your marketing becomes so generic that no-one will notice it.
It is absolutely fine to appeal to a smaller, specific group of people. In fact, it works far better.
When you are clear on who you want to sell to:
- You can design something that’s perfect for their needs
- Your messaging becomes more compelling and makes them want to buy
- You stand out much more easily because it’s obvious that you understand them
It is so much better to be highly relevant and engaged with a smaller group of people who actually want what you offer than to be vaguely visible to loads of people who don’t.
Create a Product or Service That Works
Your offer needs to work for your clients. But it also needs to work for you. This is the win-win!
For example, I don’t do the marketing for clients anymore. I spent years doing that. But when I set up my business this time, I didn’t want to juggle endless projects and other people’s deadlines.
So, I designed my offer differently. I now use my experience to help small business owners learn how to do their own marketing via 1:1 support and group programmes.
It works for them.
And it works for me.
Ask yourself:
- What do I need?
- What does my client need?
- How can I build something that works for both?
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Price for Profit (Not Just Survival)
Your business needs to make a profit. That’s the whole point. That’s how you get the lovely life you wanted when you were working on your goals.
If you have to sell eleventy billion hours a week just to break even, something’s off.
You’re either:
- Pricing too cheaply
- Or selling time for money rather than value
When you understand your target market and what matters to them, you can build value into your offer so you can sell it at the price that lets your make the profit you want.
How These 4 Fundamentals Make Marketing Easier
Here’s the simple version:
- Know what you want from your business (goals)
- Know the people you want to sell to (target market)
- Build the right offer
- Price it properly
Once you’ve got these in place, creating a small business marketing plan becomes much easier. You know what you need to do, who you need to talk to, and what messaging will attract them to your offer.
And your marketing starts doing what it’s supposed to do. It starts bringing in leads and helping you get more clients. Most people are trying to work out how to get more clients for a small business. This is how!
Do You Need Help Making This Work in Your Business?
It sounds simple.
nd it is.
And it isn’t.
Because asking yourself the right questions, and answering them honestly, is really hard to do on your own.
That’s exactly what I help with.
So, if your marketing feels harder than it should, take a look at Less Hassle, More Clients, my 12-week programme starting Tuesday 19th May at 10am.
Complete the programme and you’ll:
- Get your 4 fundamentals nailed
- Learn how to turn them into a simple marketing strategy for your small business
- Build a clear 90-day plan
- Get practical training on networking, email marketing and social media
- And more….
Find out more and sign up here:
https://welcome.zhrmarketing.co.uk/signup-page-may