When we work with business owners we often see their insistence to be intimately involved in every detail of their business. It is not an indication that this is how all business owners behave, but it is certainly a common thread amongst the people that reach out to us for help. We care about our businesses more than anyone else, so we should be the leader in every element, right? Wrong. When it comes to your marketing specifically, you should have an a-team on your side. Here is why:
Most people are not great at communicating. We regularly counsel our clients on their errors in correspondence and advertising. There are few things more disappointing for a business owner than a lead lost and no idea of why. More often than not we sift through existing correspondence and pin point the issue. Learning how to handle a lead requires a finesse, and it is not the same finesse that was employed as recently has ten years ago. The consumers of today are savvy, they command an equivalent level of communicative prowess in the people that they do business with. When you are creating your own advertisements, writing your own lead nurturing emails or crafting your own blog you are often missing the mark on how exactly your prospects would like to be communicated with.
We employ a technique called Buyer Personas to help us target your content to your dream client. Why are you putting anything out into the world that is going to attract the kind of client you don't want to do business with? You don't know? So stop it. This is typically the biggest learning curve for our client family. Do not write something just to have it up. We believe in "done is better than perfect" as a facet of our methodology, but it should be done right. Focus in on who you want as your client. Where is the kind of money you're hungry for, how are they living, what are they interested in, where are they looking for things, what do they research, etc, etc, etc. It all matters, and it will dramatically alter the way you are communicating with the public.
The concept of content marketing has never been more vital to the small and medium sized business owner. We are amidst the information revolution and people are happier than ever because they can be educated. That is right, they are researching and learning and sometimes find themselves in a position of equivalent knowledge with the person that is selling to them. If that doesn't have you running scared, what will? Honestly, it is a terrifying moment of realization for many of our clients, but there is a bright side. A really nice silver lining that will quickly convince you that content marketing is exactly where you should be focusing your efforts. Be the voice they are looking for. Educate them. Give them more than your competition. Sounds simple and from a high level perspective it is. But when it is done well, it is complicated and that is why you should invest in making something happen before your competition does.
One of the most disappointing realizations when we enter a company to reconstruct their marketing and sales process is that both have been tossed by the wayside in favour of "more important" tasks. Why do we get called at all? Because those more important tasks only exist when there are clients to perform them for. When a business neglects sales and marketing (smarketing, we will blog about this eventually) it slows down the lead pipeline and then those important tasks are no longer relevant. With the business owner that tries to do and master it all, there is a detonation point. This kind of business management cannot exist forever, and either the business owner will internally detonate and not know how to continue, or life will get really hard really fast around them and they are left astray from their business with no business development program in place and no sustainability plan in sight. It is a hard reality of the entrepreneurial game, but the good news is that there is hope. You need an agency, and if you want real leads, you don't need a marketing agency. You need an inbound marketing agency.
When you engage and inbound marketing agency to handle your marketing, you are doing two things. You are handing over the reigns to professionals that work with a multitude of other professionals (us inbounders are a tight bunch) and you are taking the step to a healthy lead pipeline that will sustain your business. This is important! Your business is way too valuable to be neglected, and you have worked too hard to build it from the ground up. Own that investment and acknowledge the importance of feeding it with qualified leads that will impact your company. You want to retire, you want life after work, and you want to sell your company because that is your retirement plan. Great, lets get started!
So before you hit your breaking point, or become disenchanted with marketing strategies that aren't working (not because they don't work, because you aren't a marketer), make the decision to do your company a favour and make a positive change. Learn more about inbound marketing and how it works by connecting with the industry leaders at Hughes & Co.