When it comes to marketing, small business owners are at a disadvantage.
Most marketing agencies are set up to serve the needs of larger businesses. These larger businesses have full time marketing directors or similar in place to put together the company’s marketing plan and set up their marketing system.
So when it comes to hiring a marketing agency, these larger companies are usually looking for help in specific tactical areas, such as graphic design, web design, branding or SEO. Why? Because they already have someone in house managing their marketing plan and marketing system.
Small businesses, on the other hand, almost never have full-time marketing resources in place. It’s up to the business owner to play the role of marketing director (along with wearing a number of other hats). However, the business owner is usually an expert in his or her particular field, but not an expert in marketing.
This means that unlike larger companies, small businesses don't have someone in house to create their marketing plan or set up and manage their marketing system. So when they look to outsource their marketing or hire a marketing agency, they are at a disadvantage.
Most Marketing Agencies Focus on Specific Tactics
Most marketing agencies are tactical in nature. This means that they don't focus on helping businesses take the first step in marketing: creating their marketing strategy or seting up their initial marketing system. Instead, they help businesses with the second step in marketing, all the marketing tactics you have to choose from once your marketing strategy and system is in place. These tactics could include SEO, graphic design, branding, web design, social media, or any combination of these.
Because these agencies aren't focused on creating your marketing strategy, they rely on you, the business owner, to provide them with details on your market, your customers, your core difference, and your selling and marketing systems. If you don't have this information, the agency will take their best educated guess.
Tactics Without Strategy is Simply the Noise Before Failure
Unfortunately, moving straight to marketing tactics without first setting up a marketing strategy and system is pretty common. And it's also the main reason why you hear many business owners saying that advertising, Facebook or SEO just doesn't work for them.
In order to be effective, your marketing tactics have to have a reason for existing and be tied into your overall marketing or selling system. Otherwise, they are just a fun (and often very costly) exercise. It's almost like buying Microsoft Word, but not installing the Windows Operating System. You sure do have a word processing program, it just won't work.
Small Businessses Need a Marketing System First
Before diving deep into tactical areas, small businesses need to put the same marketing foundation in place that their larger counterparts already have. To do this, they need to engage a marketing consultant or agency that focuses on helping businesses create marketing plans and setting up marketing systems.
A Marketing Plan is Not Enough
Notice that we emphasized that small businesses need both a marketing plan and a marketing system. Why both? Because a marketing plan, while essential, is simply a document. And without in-house marketing experts in place to interpret and implement the marketing plan, it will likely just sit on the shelf and gather dust.
With a marketing system, you get everything you need to plan, build, activate and sustain your marketing:
- Create your marketing plan
- Build your marketing foundation and set up your marketing tools
- Activate your marketing strategies (this is where you may engage other marketing agencies with specific expertise direct marketing, SEO or social media)
- Sustain your marketing with an easy to maintain step-by-step system and processes (yes - marketing should work just like any other business system - like accounting)
How Do You Identify the Right Strategic Marketing Agency?
If you're not a marketing person, it really is hard to tell one marketing agency from another. So how do you identify a strategic marketing agency that can help you with your marketing plan and marketing system?
A strategic marketing agency will:
- Talk about strategy before tactics
- Ask you many questions about your customers, your current strategy, your processes, your systems, your goals, your current results and your team
- Be concerned about your ideal client, your core difference, your industry and your competitors
- Will NOT offer you specific tactical solutions in the first meeting (you need to run a Facebook ad, you need a new brochure, etc.). An agency that offers you a solution in the first meeting without getting to know your business is focusing on tactics first
- Will NOT tell you they can get you to the top of Google or make other grandiose promises
What is a Marketing System?
In order to choose the right marketing agency, the small business owner has to first understand what a marketing system is. We define a marketing system as the process to getting someone who has a need to know, like, trust and try you - so they will eventually buy from you, keep buying from you - and refer you to others.
The key steps to setting up this system are:
- Putting Strategy Before Tactics
- Using the Marketing Hourglass to Set Up A Buying Process
- Publishing Educational Content
- Building a Total Web Presence
- Operating a Lead Generation Trio, Including Advertising, PR and Referrals
- Making Selling a System
- Live By the Marketing Calendar
To learn more about the key stages in setting up your marketing system, download our free eBook, The 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success, written by best-selling author John Jantsch:
