Down The Drain... Or Leverage?
Marketing Is An Expense If You Do It Wrong
Do It Right And It Will Drive Your Business
Most small business owners think of marketing as just another expense of running their business, no different than payroll, accounting, or other overhead items. What most entrepreneurs fail to realize is that marketing actually offers their business great financial leverage.
An advertisement costs the business owner the same amount to run whether it produces one sale, ten sales, or a hundred sales. If a certain headline will pull in 21 times the response of all others, that’s 2,100% leverage! So why don’t more businesses spend more effort (not more money!) developing and executing their marketing strategies?
One reason is that while business owners are usually very proficient at providing their service or making their product, they don’t really understand their role as a marketer. A barber who thinks he is a barber is only half right--he is really a marketer of haircuts. A landscaper is a marketer of lawn mowing services; a banker is a marketer of loans, and so forth.
It’s very simple: no customers equals no revenue equals no business. Because marketing is the engine that fuels every business, you must maximize your marketing to optimize your business.
The good news is that marketing canbe simple, cost-effective, and offer a tremendous competitive advantage when executed properly. All it takes is an open mind and a willingness to add new twists to familiar techniques--usually a tune up, not an overhaul. Many small businesses are doing the right kinds of things, but just aren’t doing the right things the right way
