Marketing often feels like one of those thankless tasks in your business. You know you need to do it, but it’s difficult to plan and time-consuming to implement. Plus, it takes you away from the money-making activities in your business like working with clients, cashing in on those sales and building the thing(s) you sell.
And when you don’t make immediate sales as a result of your marketing efforts, it’s even more frustrating.
The reason it’s such a struggle is two-fold. One, as a business owner there’s little time to implement a full marketing plan. And two, as a professional [insert your expertise here], there’s no way you can have all the knowledge and skills you need to develop and implement said marketing plan.
A true marketing plan includes:
- Content strategy and development
- Email program skills
- Email marketing
- Graphic design
- Public relations outreach
- Website and tech development
- SEO and keyword research
- Data analysis
- And so much more
You’ll need to have a copywriter, web designer, graphic designer, social media manager, marketing strategist, project manager and more on-hand to manage all the parts to your marketing plan. Can you say ka-ching!?
If you’re a one-woman show, or even if you have a small team, chances are that you can’t do all of the above and still have time to sleep. (You really do need sleep!) And it’s daunting to manage a team of people who can do all of this for you.
But what you can do is hire an agency to do this work for you–with one point of contact to keep you apprised of all that they’re doing to market your business. While I’m sure you’ll continue to educate yourself on best practices, it’s the agency’s job to stay on top of trends and issues, to keep tabs on your analytics and to create and publish the content you need to meet your business goals. And take care of those last-minute tech issues and content “emergencies.”
Hint: There’s no such thing as a content emergency if your content is being managed properly.
It’s not rocket science, but it’s not as simple as pushing out a blog and email every week and watching the sales flood in. There’s a process and reason behind every piece of content. And if you’ve been struggling, it’s time to hit the “Easy” button and outsource this vital piece of your business–as much or as little as you want.
Are you ready to find out what an agency can do for you? Write Solutions recently began offering full-service marketing packages for small businesses. We’re ready to help YOU. Sign up for a Map It Out session today to get started. (Not ready to commit? A Quick Chat will get you on our calendar for free!)
