NEWS
Stop wasting your money on marketing without a point of difference for your Australian small business
We know that marketing your small business can be super frustrating and overwhelming. We speak to a lot of small business clients who spend lots of time, money, energy and skills on marketing their small business, but they see little to no return on the investment.
Of those four limited resources, often the biggest downfall is the fact that they haven't thought about before they've gone and invested in setting up the product, leasing out an office, buying a laptop, whatever it might be and then also doing the marketing.
What is it that they are doing that is different to the competition and why would people choose them when the market is already saturated and cluttered? It's so important that you think about what your offering is, why it's different, why is your audience different and how is the experience that you're providing different and put yourself in your consumers and clients shoes and think about from a mindset perspective, because marketing is a battle of the mind.
Why they would choose to use you over the next person if they're already using someone? Why would they change if you're providing something new that doesn't exist? How will you educate them about what you do and how you're going to help them and how your product or service is unique to the market and unique for your client and customer?
You need to invest the time to think about some of these considerations and really position your business and your brand in the minds of your customers that is different to the competition.
That's where the time money energy and skills need to be invested, so on the other side when you start marketing and putting your word out there, putting your messaging out there and putting your communication out there, that there is limited waste and you're getting a return on those key resources.
Building your small business brand with video
“Should I be posting videos on social media?”. This is a question I got early this morning from a client of ours that been in business for over 30 years. My answer to this small business owner was absolutely be posting videos, but his concern was the type of videos that he should be posting.
The one main suggestion that I advised to him was that given his business has been going for 30 years, he's a professional, they've got 20 odd staff in the services industry and the perception that he's creating from these videos needs to match his history of professionalism, who he works with and the fact they been going for 30 odd years.
So, I said try to avoid making these videos trivial. You want to reinforce your professionalism, your trust, the type of clients that you work with like strata, government and councils, they're the people that are going to be looking at your content, so make it relevant to them.
Speak to your audience, speak to the fact that you're a leader in your field. You're not a one man band, you didn't start yesterday.
So that over time as people start to see your content, if they've never seen you before, it's all aligned with your history, how you’re positioning your business and your brand in the minds of those customers, so there's consistency in that message and the perception that you're trying to create in the marketplace.
These were the considerations that I gave him this morning to think about before he posts but activity is key. It's not going to be perfect, as I always say. From day one it'll evolve but it's about actually starting and the fact that he's keen to do it is exciting for him and his business he just needs to get a start.
I guess the key advice is think about what message you want to put out there, if you are posting videos. What are you trying to portray? What perception are you trying to stand for in people's minds?
