Do-it-yourself marketing (DIY) may sound like the best way to control your marketing budget, but there comes a time in every business person’s life when it ceases to make good business sense. Sure, DIY marketing can be fun and, yes, even productive. It can be effective if you are good at it, have the time, and especially the passion.
Those are three great reasons to convince yourself that you can handle it AND perform the other tasks required of a business owner. Here are the Top 3 Reasons the reverse is more than true:
v Time vs. ROI
v Marketing Automation
v Ever-Changing Marketing Tools
Top 3 Reasons Why DIY Marketing
Doesn’t Work
Done for you (DFY) marketing makes more sense for these three main reasons, but there are others.
If you can overcome these top 3, you’re well on your way to becoming a marketing champion for yourself, your team, and especially your bottom line.
Time vs. ROI – Spending all your time marketing may sound like its most productive use, but what about the rest of the business? You might lose what ground you gain by performing the marketing tasks by ignoring other important aspects like payroll control, inventory, shipping, receiving, or accounting and finance. You can only do so much. You have to determine what your best use of time is and what yields the most return on investment. As a businessperson, your attention must be on the big picture, not the myopic view of a single department.
A few of my customers have moved away from some of the marketing I once performed for them to save money. What each one of them found out over time was that not only did it cost more due to trial and error, delays in campaign design, lack of in-house personnel, and outsourcing gambles, it ate up as much more of their time AND their financial resources than they ever considered. Each one of my once-customers has returned to the fold.
Marketing Automation – This is another of those two-edged swords; marketing automation can be a boon or a bust for small business owners. While marketing automation solutions can eliminate wasted effort, they take time to learn well enough to maximize their effectiveness.
Which answer, of the more than 30, would be best? Some automation solutions address email campaigns; others specifically address social media management.
Still more than a combination of several, such automation service solutions address public relations. These online DIY marketing solutions are well represented, and all sound like a perfect match, but not many are designed to be as simple as they may say. There are all-in-one solutions that make good sense, but they may be overly expensive for your budget. In reality, they are more flash than generating cash. These service packages are built to catch the eye of the newbie Internet marketer.
The decision seems straightforward until you break down the individual service components, match them against present and future needs, and their relative costs. Then human resources are needed to manage and perform the automation and analytics. Are you saving time and money by implementing a marketing automation solution in-house with a limited budget? Doubtful.
Always a New Marketing Tool – In case you have been too busy performing your DIY marketing and haven’t noticed, there seems to be a new “solution” available every other day. It’s difficult for most of us to keep up with advancing technology where marketing is involved. As a solution provider, we work with unique tools that we know, rely on, and benefit our clients. We don’t fall for every new-fangled piece of software that sounds too good to be true, although we do study them all the time.
Please don’t misunderstand, we’re always looking for better, more accurate, cost-effective solutions for our client base, but technology is not a one-and-done approach to business. Competition is fierce in this industry, much like the business industry in which you participate.
The advancement of marketing strategy and tactic development is constantly changing as well.
Just a few years ago, Twitter made absolutely no sense to many of us, and today the social platform is considered mandatory to stay apprised of the business conversation.
It’s the new Word of Mouth, after all. However, just today, it was announced that Instagram (once shelved as a loser) is about to overtake Twitter regarding online activity. Amazing how things shift and change constantly.
Review sites are yet another phenom that is a must. Although they have been around for a while, their prominence has risen due to the shift from desktop to mobile search. Our On-the-Go society searches for local businesses via smartphones. It checks review sites to see what people feel about a particular industry and whether the said company is “worth their time and investment.”
This new word of mouth is often the tipping point for one business against its competitors.
Along Comes Mobile – Again – Mobile marketing hit the scene with text marketing twenty years ago. Banner ads and other forms of online mobile marketing followed slowly over time. Text marketing struck hard, then faded almost as quickly as it appeared. Abuse and ignorance caused a gap between those in the know and those without a clue.
Today, mobile marketing is gaining significant momentum, with more than 50% of smartphone and mobile devices originating from online search (the shift has reached critical mass and tipping to be the majority). The Gladwell Theory again comes into play.
Mobile presence and mobile marketing are must-haves now.
Businesses of all shapes, sizes, and structures must have an intriguing mobile presence to compete.
Advancements in mobile marketing have dramatically improved. Mobile retargeting, near-field communications, iBeacon marketing, geofencing, SMS text, QR codes, mobile passes, and pay garnering increasing attention daily.
DIY Won’t Work – How can one person or one in-house team manage all the decisions to maximize return while minimizing financial outlay effectively? It’s impossible to think that any person or small group can drive all the marketing solutions and decision-making on a small business marketing budget. There’s just too much from which to choose. What’s the best solution(s)? Where is the best place to spend your valuable marketing dollars? Only you can answer that.
Marketing is more than blogging, sending emails, and buying advertising space somewhere. It’s not easy; if it were, everyone would be doing it. Marketing agencies would not exist.
