Okay, so if you want a business that stands out, there are two realities. You can either neglect marketing and advertising, watch your sales and reach dry up like the proverbial desert…
Or, you can embrace marketing and advertising, learn to kick a little a$$ with it, and enjoy the sweet, sweet, just desserts of success. Everyone loves dessert, right?
Avoiding the Desert Lands
We’re mixing some metaphors here a bit but stay with us. If you run a business but avoid marketing it, it’s like you live in the world of “Mad Max”. Scarcity is the norm, and survival is the name of the game. There’s just no good thing that comes from having zero marketing or advertising strategies in play. Not only do sales and leads dry up, but your business also becomes vulnerable to the competition. Then, there’s the small detail of how your brand becomes invisible to everyone. Except perhaps your mom.
Think about the old movie rental giant Blockbuster. Most folks probably don’t know who they are today, but at one point, you could likely find a Blockbuster store on every other street corner. Sadly, they failed to adapt to the new digital landscape they found themselves in, didn’t market themselves well, and ultimately died a slow, painful death. Don’t be like Blockbuster, friends.
Getting Your Just Desserts
Achieving the sweet satisfaction of success means embracing marketing and advertising, even if your efforts are small at first. The truth is that when you master effective marketing, you learn how to capture the attention of the right people, drive engagement with your brand, and increase sales. Even small marketing efforts can go a long way in winning people over and boosting sales and leads, and small efforts done consistently, can help you avoid costly, hail-Mary campaigning.
Take the Dollar Shave Club as an example. This brand personifies how well a little marketing effort can go a heck of a long way. When they started out, they kicked off with a funny, low-budget video that went viral. Was it the best video they could have made? Probably not. Did it require deep pockets to produce? Also, likely not. However, it was humorous and targeted and led to a significant boost in growth and visibility. This reiterates that mall marketing efforts work better than no marketing efforts. So… be like Dollar Shave Club.
Tips to Avoid the Desert and Eat That Dessert
Several things you can do to help keep your business top of mind for your customers and clients and stay out of the desert.
- Do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to discover areas your business is floundering in that could use some attention.
- Get clear on your marketing goals and make a measurable and specific plan. Know your target audience so you can ensure your messaging is tailored to speak directly to them.
- Create stellar content that people are eager to engage with and tailored to them. It should encourage those on the receiving end to take action in some way. Try creating a content calendar with ideas for consistent and regular updates, with a mix of videos, blog posts, and social media posts to keep it interesting.
- Take a multi-pronged approach by leveraging SEO, social media, and email marketing to reach as many people as possible with your campaigns. Use social media strategically to help you build community around your brand and invite user-generated content to increase customer loyalty.
- Always track your data and analyze your results. You can use a range of tools to help you do this, but the key is finding the tools that work for your business that you know you will use consistently.
- Tweak and adjust based on the data you collect to improve your results. Always, always, always reply quickly to customer service issues and feedback. Use that feedback to improve your offers.
Moral of the story? Marketing and advertising are critical components for every business’s success, and you can’t skip them. Also, landing yourself in the desert is a lonely place to be.
The key to doing all of this well though, is balance, friends.
Just like a small piece of dessert can hit the spot, helping you avoid overindulgence or, worse, pure deprivation, a little marketing can increase your bottom line and keep your business growing and thriving.
You don’t have to go bankrupt to reach people, and you don’t have to exist forever in some tragic feast-or-famine cycle that never ends. You can enjoy life and live forever on your little island oasis of business and marketing success.
With plenty of dessert! Not desert.
