While there’s no question that a solid online marketing programme can increase your business, there are certain things it cannot do.
Marketing Can’t Make You An Overnight Success
Just because you engage in online marketing doesn’t mean you are immediately going to see your business explode. Marketing is about getting your name in front of your target market on a regular basis until they finally decide to give you a try.
On that note, if you’re in trouble right now: sales are down, a new business isn’t getting off the ground as you’d planned; then depending on how serious the trouble is, online marketing may not be enough to save you. Any successful marketing strategy needs time to work and more often than not, a little money as well. If you’re panicked about one or both, you may need to start looking at other options.
Marketing Is Not About Doing Something Once And Forgetting About It
The very best marketers test. And test. And test again.
For instance, maybe your website isn’t converting visitors to customers as well as it should be.
- You could hire a copywriter to tweak it for you.
- You could test the different elements to see what raises your conversion level.
- You could test different headlines, different offers, etc.
Marketing Can’t Fix A Bad Experience
This is a big one. If your customers have a bad experience with your products or services or with your customer service or sales support, that’s it. Worse yet, not only have you lost a customer for good, that customer will probably tell others about their bad experience.
So now you’ve lost potential customers as well.
Marketing can get people in the door but it cannot ensure they will have an experience they’d want to repeat. So before assuming more marketing is what you need, take a moment and make sure your current customers are truly satisfied with your business.
Marketing Can’t Repair A Flawed Business
Marketing can’t fix cash flow issues or staff problems.
Sometimes you get so caught up in the day-to-day challenges of running a business you can’t see the woods for the trees.
Suppose you have a business that’s struggling with cash flow. The first thing that springs to mind may be revving up marketing. After all, the idea behind marketing is to increase revenue. On the surface that makes good sense. However, if you look a little closer, what you might find are expenses that are out of whack, or you are not getting your invoices out in a timely manner. So what you should be fixing is accounting problems rather than changing your marketing.
Marketing Can’t Make People Buy Things They Don’t Want Or Can’t Afford
It doesn’t matter how great your product or service is, if you’re selling to people who either don’t have the interest or the means to buy it, then your marketing is going to fail no matter how brilliant it may be.
So basically it all boils down to this, before you decide you need more marketing, take a few moments and make sure that online marketing is really the right solution for your business.
Creativity Exercise – Reality Check
Before you launch into online marketing, take some time to analyse what’s really happening in your business. Do you really need a marketing program or is your problem connected with any of these factors:
- You aren’t able to close the leads you have.
- You aren’t invoicing in a timely manner or following up with unpaid accounts.
- Your customers aren’t happy with the product or service.
- Your customers are having a bad experience with technical support or something else in the process isn’t working.
- Your target market isn’t right.
- You aren’t passionate about what you’re doing any more.
- Your business is over-expensed.
If you want to grow your business, then you should be consistently marketing your business, but if you’re using marketing as a band-aid for some other problem, then you could be heading for trouble.
I am indebted to a fellow writer Michele Pariza Wacek for the wisdom contained in this brief chapter. Michele is the author of Got Ideas? Unleash Your Creativity and Make More Money.
www.TheArtistSoul.com