You don’t have time to market your business
Be honest: How much time do you spend on marketing?
If you’re like the 89% of U.S. small business owners operating with less than 20 employees, your time is precious. For service-related industries especially, most business owners have a full plate. Not only do they provide hands-on service delivery, but this is in tandem with managing their team, balancing the books, as well as performing regular administrative tasks.
A recent report from Constant Contact concluded the same when studying small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs):
There isn’t enough time in the day for small businesses to prioritize marketing. Marketing tasks get pushed down SMBs to-do lists in favor of other business responsibilities. Most SMBs have less than an hour each day for marketing.
With so much to think about, do you have the time to market your business? (We argue there’s not.) And is there a way to boost your marketing activity without sacrificing your time? (There is.) To explore the issue, let’s start by breaking down how much time you’re currently working with.
How much time are you spending on marketing?
For most business owners, the answer to that question is: not enough. Think about the time it takes to manage employees, take inventory, monitor finances, engage with customers … the list goes on. With most small business owners working at least a 50-hour work week, those various activities add up, leading to stress, burnout, and an overall drop in running your business efficiently.
With every business owner having their own unique schedule, there’s no way to come up with an exact number of hours allocated for different tasks. But let’s visualize two hypothetical scenarios that outline how time might add up:
Again, these are completely hypothetical, but let’s break down each one.
In the first chart, we’re picturing the small business owner that either works independently or has a small team to manage. Because so much of their time is spent on the job performing services for clients, this takes half their time. There’s little space to devote to other responsibilities. As a result of this on-the-job focus, relationship-building (15%) edges out marketing (5%). Using the 50-hour work week as a baseline, this comes out to two and a half hours per week for marketing.
In the second chart, things even out a bit. This business owner has more members of the team to lean on, and can therefore dedicate more time to business operations, project management and relationship-building. As for marketing, the time investment ticks up to 10%, but there’s still not a lot of time to dedicate to these initiatives. In the 50-hour work week, this comes out to five hours per week. (This also lines up with the survey mentioned earlier, with 58% of respondents spending just 5 hours or less on marketing their business in an average week.)
Some business owners might consider hiring an in-house team if they have the means to do so, but for many, marketing tends to take a back seat.
How do you make the time for marketing?
Marketing is something you really need to do well.
The payoff can mean more leads, more sales, increased brand recognition and ultimately, continued growth. That said, here’s what those effective marketing activities should include:
Research: Being a top-notch marketer means putting in the time to understand your market, identify the right audience, and create the marketing strategies that sync up with this work.
Content: From creating an ad to writing blogs to posting on social media – you need the time and space to pull it off.
Execution: Putting your content into action is an additional lift. You’ll need to schedule social posts, launch ad campaigns and spend time engaging with followers on social media.
Analysis and optimization: Marketing never stops. You’ll always be analyzing, adjusting and tracking your performance. This continued effort is what sets you aside from the one-and-done marketers in your industry.
With all those responsibilities, how are business owners making the time for marketing? Some might be working overtime. Others might delegate marketing responsibilities, bypass key opportunities, or not even know where to start. But if those options aren’t viable – or acceptable – how do you make the time? The fact is, there are a variety of marketing initiatives to pursue without sacrificing your valuable time...
How BBB helps balance your marketing needs
BBB can take the lead on launching effective marketing activities for your brand. This means you can gain the results without the additional time constraints.
Here’s how we can help:
Expertise and guidance: Our team of marketing experts provides personalized advice and strategic ad campaigns to calibrate your marketing efforts to your unique business goals.
Access to the tools, resources and manpower: From video production equipment to digital tools to the teams that know how to use them, we’ve already got the resources to craft a wide range of marketing campaigns.
Time, time, time. Running your business takes time. As the charts above illustrate, the various responsibilities add up, leaving little room to follow through with your marketing goals. Working with BBB’s Marketing Solutions Team means you can achieve those goals while freeing up more time to focus on delivering exceptional service to your clients.
Marketing support in just a click
In service-related industries, where word-of-mouth and local reputation are critical, a robust marketing strategy can make the difference between merely surviving and truly thriving. It can help attract new customers, retain existing ones, and build a stronger brand presence. While it may seem daunting to increase the time spent on marketing, it doesn’t have to be.
If time is an obstacle, remember: You’re running a BBB Accredited Business. Because of all you do, our Marketing Solutions Team is always ready to go to work for you. Reach out today to get a conversation started.