This blog post is not to convince you that NOW IS THE TIME but rather highlight when it may be a good idea to step away. I often hear “We don't want to do any digital marketing right now”. In a lot of cases, I believe that their reasoning is valid. Marketing is great and can produce significant results for your business, but if you are not ready for it, you need to be ready to waste a lot of time and money.
Digital marketing is a lot of work, even if you outsource to a consultant or an agency. You need to be involved as to what content is going out under the business. Not only that, once you start generating leads, you need to spend a lot of time doing sales calls and not put them to the side until you have the time to do so because the longer you wait, the urgency is significantly reduced.
It is still common to hear business owners say that they work with anyone and want to work with everyone. If you are not being specific enough, you are going to be either an annoyance to those who don’t care or not relevant enough to those who actually need your help.
Marketing takes time. It takes multiple exposures and It takes a lot of trust building. You cannot purchase your customers. They are earned over time just as lasting friendships are not made overnight.
Marketing is expensive. You have to pay for the brains and also for the execution. There is a minimum amount of dollars that you need to invest, but if the minimum is more than 30% of your earnings, it may be better for you to bring in more money before diving in. The last thing you want is to run out of money before you start seeing marketing results.
If you are satisfied with what you have and don’t see the need of doing things differently, then there is no point to invest. Marketing is for those who see the need for growth or a change. They want things to be different but for the better.