Small business marketing is still met with the same challenges – time and budget. As an agency that works with small businesses and is also a smaller business, time is never on our side as we wear a lot of hats and want to be everywhere but yet we are faced with the uncertainty of what will be best to allocate the marketing budget. Many times when posed with the question of “What is your marketing budget?” the response is “Well, what will it cost?” and this prompts “What do you want to accomplish?” This feels like a never ending cycle of questions that get answered with questions and for many small business owners only questions the ability of the consultant/agency. How can they not know what I want to accomplish? Customers and Sales! We all want more customers and sales, I know that Kherize5 does.
Butt Prints vs Foot Prints
The almost never ending struggle for a small business owner. What is best - face to face where your feet make the imprint or the online relationship building where your butt makes the imprint? There is the everyday work that needs to be done, creating and maintaining relationships online which is time consuming but is that more important than pounding the pavement? The answer to that question is to develop a balance. When something is working it is easy to focus only on that and push the all else to tomorrow, it is important to remember that building relationships is not limited to being exclusively on or offline.
It is easier to continue with a “daily routine” as who wants to venture out to the unknown? Social media is not new but how it is incorporated and maintained for many small businesses is. It takes time to optimize, rank and build relationships where going to an event is almost a different feeling of time spent. For many we drive the same route, go to the same hot spot for our coffee and if we have to deviate, we feel out of place. This is no different than sitting in front of the computer or venturing out to networking events – if we are not accustomed to it, we feel out of place and are unsure of we will be accepted.
It is a struggle to keep your butt prints and foot prints balanced to get the most exposure for your company. In social media we know there is a voice behind the company but yet many do not feel as connected to that person as they would being face to face. This is not to say that there are not face to face blunders or that there is a lack of trust or that business is not done online (as I can attest that there is!) but being locally accessible and making some footprints is a great way to converse and learn more about others and how you can actually help them than sitting behind a computer.
What is your balance? Do you have more butt prints than foot prints?
photo credit: Rupert Taylor-Price
