It is a Friday night and I am picking up food from 2 pizza parlors. Both are empty. No pile of boxes filled with steaming hot pizza waiting for Uber or pickup. Just Owners wondering why they are empty.
Marketing. That’s Why. Or a lack of marketing is why you are empty.
Marketing is made up on many things. And I am not saying to do all of them; but I am saying do something!
Most small business try one ad one time, one coupon, one trial in marketing – and if they are not crowded, then obviously marketing doesn’t work.
Marketing is being consistent.
Marketing is experimentation until you have data. Data like who is your customer? How do I reach them? Direct mail? Ads on Nextdoor? Social media? If SM, which platform? Facebook? Instagram? Tiktok?
What have I tried? How did it work?
How much will it cost? Can I hire someone reasonably priced to help?
Auto insurance companies, personal injury attorneys and drug companies are my best examples of marketing. These 3 types of businesses run hundreds of TV ads every week. Some of that is branding to become top of mind which is a different type of marketing than lead generation or Public Relations. They also are on social media, direct mail, and magazine ads! Drug companies run ads on Reddit and Twitter.
As a VoIP company or ISP you don’t need to be top of mind, but you do have to let people know you are available. What are you offering, who is best served by buying it and where do I click?
Robin Robins teaches MSPs how to use direct mail to get business. Why? Because it can still work effectively.
I often wonder why small business doesn’t market well and then I think about the many freelancers who probably didn’t do fundamental work to find out who the customer base was and the value proposition. And just took the money and ran the ads and nothing much happened. Maybe the freelancer didn’t know better. Maybe the business identified the customer as Everyone.
Ask a business owner what their Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is. Many won’t know. So they don’t really know if spending $3000 per month to acquire 5 customers per month paying $150 per month is worth it or not.
There is also the tracking. How are you tracking your website? Visitors, chat, contact page? When someone sends a contact page request, where does it go? Is it logged? Who responds? How?
If you have a chatbot, who is replying? Who is monitoring it?
If you got an email or phone call from an ad, is it tracked?
and so on…
There is No Build it and they will come. There is only build it and go to market! Or sit in an empty place and wonder.