Cutting Back Your Small Business Marketing Budge

Today I have an important question for you.

What is the one thing every business, large or small, needs to be
successful?

It’s not necessarily a good brand-though that helps a lot.

It’s not necessarily a lot of money. Plenty of businesses start up and grow
on a shoestring. All four of mine included.

Employees? Nope. In fact many businesses thrive without the burden of
payroll. I don’t have any employees by choice.

This is something even more basic. And it’s so critical that without this
one thing it is impossible to achieve business success. In fact, without
this it is impossible to have a business.

Give up yet? All right, I’ll spill the beans.

The answer is.Customers!

The bottom line is (pun intended), without customers or clients you don’t
have sales. Without sales there’s no revenue. And without revenue you don’t
have a business.Just a really expensive and time-consuming hobby.

So, next question. If customers are so important, how do you get them, and
keep them?

With effective marketing, right? Sure, everyone know that.

Yet over the past twenty years of working in, running, and growing small
businesses, I’ve found that most entrepreneurs spend as little time, money
and energy marketing their businesses as possible. You can get by like this
when people are spending. But lately what I’m hearing from established
entrepreneurs who’ve typically relied solely on word of mouth is that
business is slowing.

Doesn’t matter if they’ve been around ten years or two. If they’re not
marketing they’re losing customers, sales and market share.

What does this mean to you? To put it bluntly.

Especially in a week economy, your small businesses can’t survive on
referrals alone!!

You gotta do some marketing.

Effective marketing helps you get in front of your target market, stay top
of mind, build a relationship and ideally convince them to do business with
you. Stop marketing and chances are they’re going to forget all about you.

So resist the urge to cut back on your marketing when times are tight.
Instead make sure you’re marketing dollars are working for you. That means
tracking results, and either changing or dumping anything that isn’t
bringing you leads or sales.

And it means making sure you’re not guilty of one or more of what I call
"The Seven Deadliest Small Business Marketing Sins". Each of these sins is a
major marketing mistake that at best costs you time and money, and at worst
can cost you your business.

To find out if you’re a marketing sinner, and what to do if you are, pop on
over to http://www.7deadliestsins.com/ <http://www.7deadliestsins.com/> and
grab your copy of my FREE, 24-page REPORT "The Seven Deadliest Small
Business Marketing Sins.Are You Guilty?"

Remember, marketing isn’t an optional expense. It’s a required investment in
the health and success of your business!

I’d love to know.

Are you doing anything different to market your business because of the
economy?

What’s working for you and what’s not?

Please share by leaving a comment below.