The most successful businesses today use a mix of traditional marketing tools and digital marketing technologies to reach a larger audience and grow their market share. Unfortunately, effective digital marketing requires more than simply updating your website or scheduling a few social media posts. Implementing an integrated digital marketing strategy can be complex and time-consuming.
Few business owners can afford to spend all of their time in the details of marketing their business. If you want to spend your time on actually growing your business, and you want your marketing to help in that effort rather than stand in your way, it may be worth the investment to hire professional marketing help.
First of all, we should dispel the notion that a marketer can fix all problems. There is nothing a marketer can do for you if your product or service doesn’t make sense.
But a marketing consultant or expert can help you in several critical ways that will help your business grow.
- A Marketing Professional Will Help Define Your Strategy
Do you know who your best customers are? Do you know what makes those customers so special? Do you know how to attract more customers just like them?
These questions may seem like something every business owner should know, but if you find yourself scratching your head and searching for answers, know you aren’t alone. Any marketing professional worth their salt will help you answer these questions definitively first. They’ll achieve a level of detail in describing your ideal customer that you’ll feel as if you can anticipate their reaction to anything.
Then, a marketer will build their strategy around these ideal customers. Because you will know everything about your ideal customer, you’ll know exactly how to reach them.
Knowledge like this is invaluable when deciding what tactics are worth your time effort, and which tactics may not. You’ll no longer be reacting to trends; you’ll know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it before it happens. Only a marketing professional can give you that kind of foresight.
- A Marketing Professional Maximizes Your Marketing Budget
This may seem counter-intuitive, but hear me out. Most businesses see the hiring of a consultant as a cost, but instead, it should be viewed as an investment. If you have a marketing budget, spending a portion of it on a consultant will ensure that the budget is used effectively.
The truth is, marketing always involves a bit of trial and error. When you run a digital ad, you’ll want to test out various forms of the ad to find the best combination of photos, copy and call to actions. It’s called A/B testing and requires a lot of practice to be proficient. A marketing professional can help keep an eye on which ad converts the best into action so you can get the most clicks for lower cost.
Advertising platforms like Facebook and Google are happy to take your money, so they are more than willing to run a less effective ad and charge more per click. It’s nice to have someone in your corner.
- A Marketing Professional Can Keep You Focused on What Matters
There are countless ways to measure your marketing. Too many businesses focus on the wrong numbers. They want more followers on Twitter, likes on Facebook, newsletter subscribers and traffic on the website.
But here’s a little secret: traffic, likes and email subscriptions aren’t the end-all be-all metrics. You should be focusing on conversion instead.
Don’t get me wrong, these other metrics can provide context to the health of your marketing, but all the followers and traffic in the world does nothing for your business if they don’t buy anything. These other numbers can help you answer why something is or isn’t converting, but they won’t affect your bottom line.
A marketing professional can keep you focused on what really matters, and help you solve conversion problems first. If your conversion improves, the traffic you can acquire from your other marketing efforts will have much more impact on the growth of your business.
- A Marketing Professional Will Make You Happier
If you’re doing something you love, you never work a day in your life. It’s a cliché, sure, but I’d hope the average small business owner loves their job. Hiring a marketing professional can help you get back to doing what you love, and away from the tasks you may not love to do.
Add all this up, and it becomes clear that a marketing professional can be a great investment for a lot of businesses. It’s not for everyone, and it certainly isn’t a magic solution to every problem a small business may face, but hiring a marketing professional may be just what you need to grow your business.
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