Marketing Rx
The last time you were feeling lousy, what did you do? Did you wait it out, hoping that it would run its course naturally? Did you go to the pharmacy and try some over-the-counter remedy (hoping one will work)? Or, did you visit your doctor to get an accurate diagnosis and a treatment plan?
The biggest marketing mistake small businesses make is using hunches to improve their business without first diagnosing their problems. Business owners will call a website developer and want to freshen their website (making it look more modern or polished). The problem is, most website developers aren’t skilled marketers. They are experts in making the website graphically enticing and functional, but they’re often not as skilled at creating a website that attract more traffic (and more importantly, more clients for you).
The first four questions I ask my new clients are the same:
Where is your business now? What do you want your business to become? When? What have you tried?
The answers to these questions will start you on a diagnosis and a treatment plan for improving your business. Stop wasting time guessing what’s wrong (or only treating your symptoms). Focus on concrete goals. Define your milestones in a measurable way. Build a baseline so you can accurately measure the effect of each of your marketing/business actions. And create a series of smaller milestones to get you to your big goals. But make sure that you’re focusing on the true problems, and not the superficial symptoms. Otherwise, you’ll be spending all your time fixing symptoms but be no closer to a long-term solution.
By: Jay Hamilton-Roth
About the Author:
Jay Hamilton-Roth founded Many Good Ideas to help small businesses brainstorm, design, and implement effective marketing strategies. He combines creativity with common sense to demystify the process of getting great results. He has used his high-tech background from MIT to help him launch five businesses. He consults with companies in a wide range of industries and publishes a free monthly marketing newsletter (Creative Business Ideas) and a (daily blog). He is the host of the new TV series Business With Passion and is also available for public speaking.