Three Things a Small Business Marketing Consultant Can Teach You

As a small business owner, you need the right tools to succeed and the best way to get them is to hire a small business marketing consulting company. Sure, you may have some great ideas that got your business off the ground but you need the tools to float and eventually soar. As an owner, you have multiple responsibilities. You can remove one of them by hiring a consultant to keep your company's momentum going.

A Marketing Plan
Do you have a marketing plan actually written down with actionable steps and a timeline for completion? Many small business owners do not. Luckily, a marketing consultant can help with that. You have no hope of truly succeeding if you are flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to marketing your business. Eventually, something is going to fail because you did not have a real plan.

A marketing plan creates the foundation for actionable tasks. With a plan laid out in black and white, you will know the "whys" behind each action. Plus, if you bullet point or number the actions, the plan will not seem so daunting. You can take baby steps – one action at a time – or speed things up and accomplish several things at a time. And when business slows down, you will have a plan to revisit so that you can study which steps may be the problem so you can fix it.

Business Identification
So you hung out your shingle … does anyone know you are in business? Does the public even know what product or service you are offering? A small business marketing consultant can help you create a tagline and logo, part of the branding process, which will serve as your business identification to the public. By using your business's branding elements consistently, you can be easily identified within your industry's marketplace.

Targeting your Customers
Do you know how to get your business website to pop up at the top of the list when consumers go searching for a product like yours on an internet search engine? What about relaying key messages about your product or service? Can you do that effectively? Do you know how to create a sense of urgency or present calls to action in your advertising? How do you track your advertising and promotional efforts to determine whether they are even effective? As you can see, marketing is more than just putting up a website, handing our flyers or printing up business cards.

Marketing consultants can help you design your marketing plan and put it into action. They also will create a timeline and put an implementation plan into place so you can follow it. Hiring an outside small business marketing consultant with the knowledge and experience in your chosen industry is the key to a long and fruitful enterprise.

5 Marketing Companies' Secrets to Online Success

Marketing companies that help companies succeed online in a competitive market have quite a few trade secrets that help them achieve success quickly. They won't reveal everything unless you're a client but do you want to know a few of their secrets?


#1 Quality AND Quantity

Not only do you need high quality material to market with but you need a lot of it. A steady stream of fodder for search engines is good but it has to be good fodder. Your audience is insatiable as well. Provide plenty of quality information to them and you'll hold onto their attention for more than a nanosecond.


#2 Know Your Audience

Companies that take the time to understand their audience can market effectively to them. Marketing companies do research to find out what their client's customers want. That way they can appeal to them. When marketing online, people have the attention span of a gnat so it's imperative that you know how to find them, how to help them find you, and how to talk in a language they understand and want to speak.


#3 Use Effective Online Tools

There are dozens and dozens of tools that you can utilise in online marketing. Organic search engine optimisation tools, tools to help you execute an effective search engine marketing / pay per click advertising campaign, and tools to converse with your audience via social media. Marketing companies know which tools to use and how to put them to good use.

#4 Think Ahead

Not only do you need to appeal to your customers now but you'll need to stay ahead of them so you can be ready to present them with effective marketing material tomorrow, too. Timing is everything in marketing, especially online marketing. Market research, competitive analysis, and staying ahead of trends is vital.


#5 Provide Value

Marketing firms work to help clients demonstrate value. Today's consumer is very value-driven. They want to know what's in it for them and marketing companies help companies define their unique selling points and their value added proposition continually so that customers will want to do business with them. In a day and age where brand loyalty is harder to come by than ever, whatever you can do to appeal to your customers and prove you're a value-driven company will benefit you today and in the future. You'll benefit through direct sales, repeat sales, and word-of-mouth referrals, too.

Beware of Marketing Companies Making Unrealistic Promises

Marketing is a field requiring skill. It requires knowledge and savvy and other skills that not everyone has. That's why companies hire marketing companies --- to get the advantage of skills they don't have which will help them reach their goals. Sadly, too many companies are lured in by false expectations, though. Don't fall victim to this. Spot traits of marketing firms that should set off red flags for you.


Guaranteed Google Results

Be very careful about dealing with a company that promises you to rise to top spot on Google's (or MSN / Bing, Yahoo, or some other search engine) search engine results pages. Not only is it unrealistic to promise such a thing but there's no way to guarantee it. Even if you pay a heck of a lot of money and do achieve it, there are no guarantees you'll stay there. Further more, there are more important aspects of online marketing than just hitting top spot for a single phrase. Is it the right phrase? What will people find when they click on your link? Will your landing page REALLY entice them to buy?


Further more, what if the marketing companies' antics are considered grey hat or black hat? There are ways to get to the top of search engines fast but that aren't considered legal in the eyes of the search engines so your top spot could suddenly translate to being blacklisted altogether. A lot of time, effort, and investment could go down the drain.


Thousands of Visitors / Website Traffic

If you're promised a specific level of traffic to your website, you should ask the marketing company to be more specific. Not all traffic is equal. Watch for marketing companies making these promises because you'll want to know where that traffic will come from so you can determine how useful it will be to you. Expert marketing companies know how to get traffic that converts from a visitor to a buyer and that's the sort of traffic you want.


When you feel like you're being sales pitched, you probably are. Marketing companies should wow you with their results rather than just wowing you with their hype. Ask for proof, ask questions, and look for complete transparency so you can be certain you're dealing with a reputable company that uses ethical marketing techniques that will benefit your company rather than just benefiting the pockets of the company trying to "sell" you.

Got a Great Business Idea? You Need a Small Business Development Plan

You need a sound business development plan in order to bring your great ideas into fruition. A solid product or concept alone is not enough to build a small business. You need a sound plan, preparing for every contingency possible in order to develop your concept or product. Do you know what it all entails?


Defining Business Development

If your strong suit is marketing or product creation, to consider hiring a consultant for your business development needs. A business developer is quite similar to a salesperson except for the fact that a developer's goal is more long range; while in sales, the focus is on the here and now. In other words, a developer takes your potential and shapes it into a workable model that, with some actionable steps, will eventually forge new business relationships and a new marketable product or service. A salesperson sells that product or service.


What This Type of Development Entails

A business developer starts by evaluating your current ties with existing clients seeking ways to improve the relationship. Next, the developer identifies potential new markets for your business that you may not have tapped. In order to accomplish this task, all areas of your business are likely to be evaluated from sales and marketing to management, logistics and even customer service.


Competency in a variety of areas is important for consulting work as a business developer. The ability to identify and capitalise on potential growth is important. Because you are too close to the situation, you may not be the best candidate to draft a development plan. For instance, one of the areas that must be scrutinised closely is your current assets and how they can be used in the maintenance as well as expansion of your small business. A business developer is going to have years of previous experience to guide them.


Feasibility

A business development consultant will thoroughly asses your current business plan to determine whether it is even feasible to carry out your idea with the current set-up and resources you have. Sometimes, they will determine that you may require outside investors to bring your new idea or product to fruition. Or, they will create a plan for restructuring your company to accomplish your goals.


The role of a business developer can be a broad one. It may encompass all facets of the business or it may concentrate on one particular area. The fact of the matter is that you cannot bring a new product, service or idea to fruition without a solid business development plan. Hiring an outside consultant for this job can be a smart move for you as they are not invested in it and can provide an objective view.