Technology enables more businesses to deliver services nationally over the internet or ship products across the country rapidly and affordably. Here’s a valuable online marketing tip for small business owners.

Many today who have the ability to sell nationally think they can compete nationally with dominating giants in their industries. These giants have purchased as well as earned organic ranking authority in the search engines and pay handsomely to keep it.

It can be frustrating to attempt to penetrate an already competitive market with thousands when your top 2 or 3 national competitors are probably spending millions in Pay Per Click advertising and SEO campaigns.

Leveling the SEO & SEM Playing Field

A local market is very different, just by the math. The playing field is leveled when you concentrate your advertising spending within a small geographic footprint such as a county, state or tri-state region – ideally your home turf. That way, your ad concentration can match or exceed what the big boys are spending there. Of course, this is the market where your name is already more likely to be recognized!

The Winning Strategy

If you own a small business and want to improve your advertising results, start locally or regionally with your ad campaign’s initial launch. Then analyze the results before your pour money across the vast, fruited plain only to be as visible in most markets as a needle in a haystack.

If your local campaign generates a successful result, roll the campaign out further and further as sales increase. Keep dialing in your messaging based on the acquired data and enjoy your growing success!

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COVID is likely to create a surge in small business start-up attempts and for some, these efforts will stem from misguided decisions. A number of glaring statistics illuminate why a start-up at this time may be risky and we’ll discuss the steps you can take to mitigate the risk.

On the heels of 2020, with massive job losses and thousands of individuals and families in financial distress, there is likely to be a surge in the formation of new businesses. Why? Because many are not finding employment opportunities and believe that their best path forward is to start their own business. For some, this could potentially be a huge mistake for two reasons. First, a successful entrepreneur must have a strong, valid reason for WHY they are starting a business – one that resonates with and motivates their customer base.

Starting a business because you cannot find anything else to do is a poor reason to launch a start-up because the WHY only serves your need to create income. That will not motivate a person to buy from you. Second, far too many people are not well equipped to be an entrepreneur.  They lack the patience, creativity, knowledge, resources, experience and support needed to succeed – and most don’t realize what they’re missing!

Reality Statistics

Look at the statistics. On average, each year, of new businesses begun, 54% will fail within 2 years, and 97% will fail within 5 years.  Why?  For the reasons mentioned above.  Contrary to popular belief, not everyone can be an entrepreneur.  Your decision not to move forward may preserve your life savings, or your child’s college education fund, or perhaps even your marriage.  Seriously! Even if you have already started a business, if it is less than 5 years old, or you are struggling in any way, you should quickly review your decision and determine what is needed to keep your business out of the weeds.

So, how do you determine if you might have the ability to start and sustain a successful business?  The answer lies in honest answers to a set of questions.  To succeed as an entrepreneur, you must wear many hats, some of which you have likely never worn.

The Path to Entrepreneurial Success

I have written a book entitled The Entrepreneurial Mindset. It takes a deep dive onto this topic and illustrates a way forward for those who are prepared to succeed. The book will guide you through questions that must be addressed on topics such as such Mission, Vision, Customer Base, Unique Business Identity, Unique Sales Process, Budgets and the creation of a simple but powerful Strategic Business Plan. But before you buy the book you might prefer to read a short white paper on the topic entitled Who Should Be An Entrepreneur?  The white paper asks the initial questions that will lead you to understand whether you should attempt a start-up.

Thereafter, there are many other questions to be dealt with if you elect to move forward.  Please note that the questions in the white paper are only useful if you are honest with yourself.  To receive a complimentary copy of the white paper, send a brief note asking for it by name, to TJS.PBI@outlook.com.

I leave you with this very appropriate quote from the classic novel Robinson Crusoe. Take it to heart.

“Now I saw, though it was too late, the folly of beginning a work before counting the cost and before rightly judging of my own strength to go through with it, and it grieves me heartily!”                –Daniel Defoe

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So, why is there so much reluctance among some businesses to develop and maintain an effective advertising campaign?

Jumping into paid advertising, especially in an untried medium, is a scary proposition to a lot of small business owners who must dig into their own back pockets to help fund an effective campaign. Aren’t you reluctant to spend a significant sum on a service whose success relies on the whims of other people, in other words, isn’t predictable? That’s what advertising is but thankfully, those whims can be effectively harnessed into buying action if you play your technology, data, messaging and media cards right.

Your return on investment depends on a few simple factors – reach, frequency and relevance. These are the crucial elements of a campaign and if you put effort into all three, you should see a positive ROI.

After some experience, you’ll have the confidence to invest more as you begin to measure the results based on actual response rates. The great thing with digital is that results get better and better as you dial in your data-driven campaign to more qualified prospects!

When do you advertise?

Ask yourself a couple of questions.

• Have traditional business channels like word-of-mouth, networking and direct sales taken a pause or lagged in bringing in enough new business?
• Are you unable to devote sufficient amounts of time to develop your sales & marketing channels due to other business priorities?

These are key questions that should lead you in the direction of at least a test marketing campaign with a sufficient advertising budget to move the needle in revenues. Determining the campaign scope and duration depends largely on your sales cycle. The goal is always a profitable return on investment and you can accurately calculate the cost per lead and cost per sale in real dollars & cents.

How do you measure success?

Let’s say your average new customer takes about one month from an initial inquiry to placing an order. In as little as 60 days from a campaign launch, you should be closing on some new business and have a bevy of leads in your sales pipeline. Unfortunately, there’s no surefire way to forecast your actual advertising ROI until you have sufficient data gathered from the digitally tracked campaign. But you can begin to make educated calculations within the first 90 days in most cases.

Hitting Paydirt

After a few months of dialing in your messaging and target market based on specific interests, you will begin to have a throttle-like ability to manage business growth and it can be very profitable!

Digital advertising campaigns using Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other platforms work fast because they actively find the people you’re looking for while those people are happy to see your ad pop up, answering their current need.

Campaign effectiveness and tracking accuracy are the two reasons so many corporate marketing budgets are moving out of traditional print and broadcast, which are expensive and hard to measure, to digital which can predictively deliver results when it’s professionally managed. That’s how advertising works in the 21st Century!

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