Outsourcing your marketing to an agency or freelancer is a great idea for a small business looking to grow. Doing so will free up your time and you’ll benefit from the valuable insight of a professional marketeer who can help you steer your business in the right direction and generate those important leads. However, it must be said – a marketing agency won’t fix your business!
Strong performance-focussed marketing is one of the fundamental requirements when growing a business. A marketing professional can give you lots of insightful advice on what can work to project your business forward and achieve the revenue you crave.
But, essentially, the success of your business comes down the decisions you make, your internal processes and communication.
Collaboration is Key to Marketing Success
Many small businesses make the mistake of believing if they employ a marketing professional, the sales will fly in, and all their problems will be solved. But in fact, the key to driving growth is collaboration between the marketing team, business owner, and the other departments. Keeping those lines of communication open is vital, as the marketing team can greatly benefit from gaining insight to:
- What is and isn’t working
- Your opinions on the quality of leads
- Updates on the business that can be communicated to show your business in a positive light.
- Changes in your business plan that can affect the marketing strategy.
- Customer profiles of successful leads
- Customer feedback
- The source of leads
- Industry news and trends to ensure the messages shared are relevant
This is just a taster of the kind of information marketing teams feed from to deliver your marketing strategy. Essentially the more information you can share with them about your business, the more inclined you are to see results.
However, it is important at this point to note, marketing teams should have a filter. They are trained to know what sort of information should be shared and how it can be used to engage your target audience.
Listen to the Advice to Stay Ahead of the Competition
If you are serious about growing your business, it’s important to listen and consider the advice you’ve been given by your marketing team. There are many good reasons you may choose not to follow the advice, such as budget restrictions, or it doesn’t suit the direction of your business. However, keeping an open mind could lead to opportunities you had not considered and a higher ROI.
Widen the Net
The old saying, ‘widen the net’ means to use a larger range of options or consider other possibilities. This is especially true for marketing methodologies. While there are some businesses that are solely successful from implementing TikTok shop or Google Ads, the majority of businesses need to use a range of marketing methods to provide their customers with a seamless brand journey and achieve that all important conversion (a conversion can be a sale, lead, contact, essentially it’s the ultimate goal).
A mistake many small businesses make is to employ a marketer to only do their social media. Don’t get us wrong, social media is a powerful tool, but try not to limit your business, and instead think about what happens in the customer journey.
For example, a customer has seen your social media post, they now want to purchase your product, so they head over to your website using the link in your post. If when they reach your website, it’s not easy and straightforward to complete the purchase, the customer will give up, you’ve now lost a sale.
For a successful conversion, you need as few clicks as possible to get that customer to complete their conversion.
Look at your Sales & Marketing Processes
So your marketing is great, you’re getting regular leads come through your website, you’re top of Google and your social media followers are growing. Now it’s down to you to turn those leads into sales. How will you manage this, what are the expectations of the wider team?
To ensure a hot lead is never missed, you need to establish an inhouse sale process whereby the sales and marketing are working together.
Here is an example of a seven-step sales process:
- Approach the contact
- Qualify your lead
- Present your offering
- Nurture your lead
- Overcome objections
- Close the sale
- Follow-up
A reliable CRM system will help your sales team record leads and follow up. It will also empower the marketing team to push communications at the most opportune time.
Communicate and Feedback
The most successful small businesses communicate and feedback to their departments regularly. By doing so, there is a natural flow of information, and no one is left in the dark. You can empower your team to communicate too by simply sharing ideas on a group chat or sharing weekly company news with the team in an email or a meeting.
For more suggestions and advice, speak to the Little B team.