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When it comes to passion about small business marketing, Carolyn is awesome because she lives and breathes it every day.#

Rob Hartnett

Don’t Waste Money on Bad Marketing!

There has been much evidence and research recently highlighting the fact that ‘MARKETING - how to generate a consistent flow of quality new business leads’ is the NUMBER ONE concern facing small business owners. But how does a business tackle the whole marketing arena? How do you avoid wasting money on bad marketing? How do you resource your marketing effort? How do you get the ROI you expect? With some basic marketing know-how, a simple marketing plan and a little advice you can become brilliant at marketing in order to generate more business leads.

There are thousands of ways to market your business; from PR, to advertising to letter box drops to shopping centre booths to direct mail to word-of-mouth and more. And let’s not even get started on the internet. There are thousands of ways to market your business online too. In my opinion there is a ‘missing link’ in this marketing game for many businesses. Many business owners go straight to executing a marketing tactic like radio advertising, instead of first building a marketing game plan. This game plan is based on having a clear customer value proposition, valued points of difference, strong messages, a great brand and it should then include a four to six pronged approach with each marketing tactic working together to leverage the other. A one-off scattergun approach to your marketing, like a radio advertising campaign will ultimately waste your money and simply disappoint you.

Also, be wary about who you seek advice from. There are many ‘marketing specialists’ out there that will convince you that their way of marketing is simply the best, without regard for the kind of business you are in or the audience you want to attract; long copy email specialists, SEO specialists, advertising agencies, PR agencies and more. Whilst they may be good at what they do, they will always advise you to use their particular tactic or expertise in your marketing mix – regardless of whether it is right for you or not. Often their deeper understanding of marketing is limited. There is no problem in using a marketing specialist such as a PR firm – but only once a marketing generalist has advised you on your best course of action and help you put together your marketing game plan.

Firstly though you need to get some marketing know-how and invest some time in learning more about what you do and don’t need when it comes to marketing. So I have put together my list of the top ten resources for small businesses who really want to improve their marketing know-how. Of course, there are lots of tools and resources on the Connect website too!

Top websites...

  2. Marketing Sherpa - http://www.marketingsherpa.com/
  3. Seth Godin - http://sethgodin.com/sg/ 
  5. Dynamic Small Business Network - http://www.dsbn.com.au
  7. Government websites -  www.business.gov.au

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