We’re going to be comparing two similar marketing activities and the pros and cons for each. Whether you should do them or not based on your scenario. What they actually are and how they work for your small business.
So, let's do a quick example of what that's going to look like. Let's compare search engine optimisation or SEO and Google ads. What are the two differences?
If you go to your Google browser and you type in, for example accountant for small business, at the very top of the page you'll see a couple of listings or results and above them would say the word sponsored or ads. Those are Google ads, so an accounting firm can create those ads so they appear at the top there and they only pay when a consumer or a client clicks on the ad.
From an SEO perspective or search engine optimisation, businesses doesn't necessarily pay to have its rankings appear high but it does take a whole lot of work in the background. On websites, to make sure that those rankings appear at the very top or as high as possible on Google.
The difference between the two is that Google ads is much quicker and can have immediate results whereas SEO or search engine optimisation is a long game for small business owners. So, in the podcast series we talk a lot about these examples and many more to get you thinking about which activities should be right for you.
But what's most important before you get into action mode is to think about positioning your business and your brand in the minds of your customers, where there is the least amount of competition or that is different to the competition.
Because you don't want the work that you're doing on Google ads or SEO or both to be wasted if the message that you're putting out there isn't consistent from a frequency perspective and consistent in a message perspective.
How to ensure your small business marketing works
As consumers, when we engage, with say a financial planner, we always talk to them about investments and the return investment on the money that you're putting in. So when we talk marketing then it is exactly the same for your small business, you are investing time, money, energy and skills into your business from a marketing perspective and you also then want to be able to measure your return on investment.
So it's critical that small business owners think about marketing purely from an investment perspective, rather than a spend perspective. A spend for me tells me that you're not getting any return, whereas when we talk about marketing, it's an investment.
In those four key areas of time, money, energy and skills to make sure that you’re benefiting your business over a period of time now, unlike working with a financial planner, it's a long game, like with property, like shares.
Whereas in marketing I'd like to think that working with our clients, that within kind of 6 months to a year, they're going to start to see some momentum and change based on the investment that they've made and as long as we're working together with a structured approach and a structured plan then the results should be there.
The team here at Little Marketing have been working with small business owners for over 16 years and helping them in this approach. If you're looking for a consultative approach to your small business marketing, then speak with our team today.