| SMEs can search for an experienced marketing consultant suited to their needs in the Australian Marketing Institute’s Marketing Services Directory.
There are significant differences between marketing for blue-chip companies and marketing for small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) that go well beyond smaller budgets. According to David Cervi, owner of marketing consultancy HyperSphere, there are eight pitfalls for small business when it comes to marketing.
SMEs:
1. Don’t market themselves enough.
2. Don’t think they can afford to hire specialist marketers.
3. Have difficulty explaining clearly the products and services they sell.
4. Are inconsistent in their communications.
5. Cut corners with marketing and do things on the cheap.
6. Don’t have a marketing communications strategy or plan.
7. Give up quickly if marketing doesn’t immediately produce sales.
8. Market at the wrong times.
Fortunately for SMEs, there’s an army of specialist marketing consultants out there eager to help (see the Institute’s Marketing Services Directory). Michelle Gamble, founder and director of Marketing Angels, runs small business workshops for ANZ Bank and the Australian Retailers Association.
According to Gamble, an obsession with cash flow over brand equity means promotional activity such as advertising is often done ad-hoc, with little strategy in place and high expectations of instant sales success. For this reason, the tendency can be to try something once and then write off the activity if it does not deliver immediately.
Gamble says: “I often see this with online marketing and in particular search engine marketing. SMEs will have a go at it as they’ve heard amazing statistics about ROI, but online is quite complex and you need to make sure your website is effective at converting the traffic you send to it into leads or sales.”
For SMEs in the service sector, the ‘P’ for People in the marketing mix can create many a migraine. Talent has to be recruited, developed and retained and that is often a hard task even for big companies with large HR departments and talent specialists.
Mellissah Smith, CEO of national small business marketing consultancy Marketing Eye, says: “Small businesses need to work out how they communicate their brands internally and externally to keep good staff and attract the calibre of people that will help their businesses grow. This is difficult and at times one of the biggest failures of small businesses who do not get it when it comes to getting their brands to live in their employees’ minds.”
One of the biggest issues SME marketing consultants face is that their small business owner clients too often confuse marketing with advertising. SME thinking tends to neglect things such as market research, brand positioning and strategic marketing planning in favour of going straight for the hammer in the marketing toolbox – traditional above-the-line advertising.
According to Hunter Leonard, Managing Director of Blue Frog Marketing, the more SME entrepreneurs understand what marketing really is, the more they can take control of this critical element of their business.
Leonard says: “We have developed a simple five-step marketing model for SME business owners. It has the acronym RAPID, which stands for Research, Analyse, Plan, Implement and Detect.” This is the subject of his new book, entitled ‘Marketing Has No Off Switch’.
Small business owners need to think of marketing as a major driver of success rather than as an expensive luxury. As entrepreneur John McGrath, founder of McGrath Estate Agents, said in a recent ‘BRW’ magazine article: “You run the business; therefore you are the chief marketing officer. Every single thing you do in business is marketing.”
If this all sounds a little daunting to the small business owner, maybe it is time to call in an expert. And if you do, be sure to ask if they hold CPM status, the badge of a Certified Practising Marketer from the Australian Marketing Institute.
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