Top 10 Small Business Marketing Mistakes #3 Not having a Strategic Marketing Budget

Top 10 Small Business Marketing Mistakes #3 Not having a Strategic Marketing Budget Why is a Marketing Budget Essential for Any Business?

When was the last time you sat down and developed a marketing budget? If you’re like most small businesses, you probably have not given it much thought. After all, there are so many other pressing issues that you need to handle on a daily basis; marketing doesn’t usually make the top of your list but it should. Today, marketing budgets are essential for businesses of all sizes, especially in our digital age where the competition for consumer attention has grown fierce. Consumers spend more time on the internet daily - businesses need to market to their target audiences in new ways which need to be planned out effectively. The first step is creating an actionable marketing budget that will allow you to scale your marketing efforts while staying within your means and realistic expectations.

Marketing Budgets provide clear direction for your business A marketing budget gives your company direction and purpose. If you’re like most businesses, you don’t have an unlimited budget, so you need to make every dollar count. A marketing budget helps streamline your efforts and guide where you spend money to best meet your business goals. Without one, it’s easy to waste time and money on ineffective marketing campaigns that do not generate new leads or customers. A marketing budget that is well thought out acts as a map of revenue generation for your business and it is important that as the business owner you are involved in every aspect of the process.

Marketing budgets and really any type of budget creation seems overwhelming and a bit intimidating because it is setting clear limits and expectations for your business in the short and long term. However, it also allows you to develop a well thought out plan in growing your business and it is less time consuming than most think. The value it creates for your business though is enormous and a very wise investment.

As the owner of the business you likely are very educated about exactly what marketing efforts are working, what you have tried that failed and what you want to try as a new source of customer creation. Initially when I started my first company I had no marketing budget in place - I knew exactly what I had to do in order to get new clients and did it. It worked but as the company grew it became evident that I was wasting money on marketing and that I was in dire need of creating an actual marketing budget. The company was growing so fast but I knew that I was wasting money on certain avenues - I was just too "busy" to take a few hours and create a marketing budget.

It is always well worth the time to develop a strategic marketing budget focused on the future of your business. Time management is vital for any business owner and it is a wise investment to make time on your schedule to create a marketing budget and also review the results monthly. Business owners work more hours than most in order to earn money for their business, to create a future for their families and employees. A well thought out marketing budget gives you the opportunity to generate revenue effectively and increase your profits. Take the time and do it.

The Importance of Market Research and Competitor Analysis Market research and competitor analysis are essential to any marketing budget. Without researching your target audience, finding out how they behave and what they want, how can you effectively market

your business to them? The same goes for analyzing your competition —it is important for you to understand what they are doing in order to generate business, what marketing efforts they are doing that have worked and who their target market is as well.

1. Market Research Market research allows you to better understand the needs and wants of your potential customers and also helps you identify who those potential customers are. Business owners frequently make the mistake of assuming they know who their exact target market is and assume it never evolves. Businesses change and target markets change which is why it is vital to review this on an annual basis.

The first thing to do is evaluate your current clientele and see what attracted them to your business and why they chose you over the competition. It is also quite important to review the traffic that visits your website, what search terms they use and what pages on your website are visited the most frequently. Google Analytics (free to use) gives you all the information you need in order to evaluate who your website visitors are, their demographics, what pages they went to, how they found you, what specific city or area they are from along with so much more information. It is a mistake to not spend time understanding your web traffic. Social media also provides immense data that can help you better define your target market and also potential new segments that your business can focus on. Market research also requires understanding who your competition is and what they are doing in order to generate business.

2. Competitor Analysis The importance of knowing who your competition is and what they are doing in order to generate business is vital to your success as well because customers are choosing them instead of you. A detailed competitive analysis is vital and a smart investment. The goal of analyzing your competition is to find out how they market their business, what they are doing effectively and ineffectively, who their target market is (which sometimes will surprise you and give you ideas on new market segments) amongst numerous other details of how they operate. If done properly it can give you a serious competitive edge over your competition and help you produce a strategic plan to use their weaknesses to your advantage.

As an example, one of my client's (divorce lawyer) located within a medium sized city had one competitor (another law firm) that seemed to be invincible and was obviously growing rapidly. This attorney also wanted to grow but did not understand what the other firm was doing. We assisted his firm with some things in the past and he hired us to do a competitor analysis which focused not only on this particular competitor, but all of them. This gave him insight on how to change the law firm's marketing efforts in order to better compete and win out more customers. There were key components that he learned which helped his business then and still does to this day. Here is the information we found for him which helped us create the perfect marketing plan for his business in his particular area in order to dominate the market. The competitor analysis taught him that: 1. The other law firms have serious problems returning phone calls in a timely manner. The answer was to make that a focus on his marketing and online reviews. This enabled potential clients to see through his marketing and online reviews that the other companies did not compare to his when it came to customer service. In divorce, people need to be able to reach their lawyers quickly if needed.

2. The specific law firm that he was worried about quoted much lower fees but left out key components which ended up costing them the equivalent of what he charged. This was easy to address in marketing his law firm.

3. Online Reviews taught us about certain operational inefficiencies that greatly helped his business both in how it handled new customers and also certain marketing efforts.

Market research and competitor analysis are both vital to the marketing budget because it gives you the information you need in order to make an educated decision about the future of your business. SayWhat Consulting can assist you with a detailed competitor analysis in order to help you expand your business and dominate your competition.

Ensures that Businesses finances are spent wisely Marketing budgets give you the ability to justify your spending and know that your hard earned dollars are being spent in the most effective manner possible. This is very self-explanatory but important to address only because it is a frequent problem with small and medium sized businesses. When you create a marketing budget it is important that you stick to your created marketing budget. With that said, there will always be some opportunity that seems perfect for your business and meets your business goals. In those cases it may be wise to take the risk and invest additional funds into that specific marketing event. We do recommend that you have some type of process set up in order to evaluate this new opportunity effectively in order to ensure you do not make an educated decision instead of an emotional decision.

Requires Business Owners to Spend time focusing on the future Business owners get so wrapped up in the day to day operations it is sometimes difficult to focus on the future of your company. A marketing budget sets time aside for you to actually sit down and write out your plans for the future of your company. It is some of the most valuable time you will spend on thinking about the future of your company and it is important that 100% of your attention is focused on it during that time. This is important for companies that are growing, just starting out or well established. The future of your company depends on it and with the ever changing market conditions it is important you are very involved in all those decisions.

Measuring and Evaluating Your Marketing Budget It is important that at least once a quarter you briefly measure and evaluate your marketing budget, the successes of your marketing and the failures (don't worry, failure is a part of growing your business). This gives you the opportunity to find things that may not be working and make some small changes to increase your odds of it becoming successful. If that particular failure seems impossible to turnaround - then it would be wise to reinvest that money you were going to spend into other marketing that has produced better results.

It is easy and a huge mistake to just let your marketing "maintain as is" because your business is growing or you think that the marketing is working perfectly. It is important to evaluate your successes and failures and understand that marketing efforts that work today might produce a completely different outcome for you 6 months from now.

Hiring a business consultant for your company is a very wise decision because they are able to assist you with numerous aspects of your business including improving your day-to-today operational issues, your overall marketing campaigns, competitor analysis and much more.

Developing a marketing budget and marketing plan will help your business grow while keeping marketing costs more manageable. It also ensures that you are constantly reviewing your marketing efforts to ensure that money is not being wasted on marketing that does not produce results for your business.

Written by David Phillips, CEO and Founder of SayWhat Consulting. With over 20 years of experience, Mr. Phillips has consulted with small, medium and large businesses in marketing, business management, staff training and day-to-day operations. SayWhat assists clients in numerous industries including cosmetic surgeons, plastic surgeons, med spas and attorneys in family law and criminal law. We also assist other industries as well and our primary clients are small and medium sized businesses.