While most businesses, especially small businesses, believe that marketing is important, too few actually make it their top priority. While most current research points to the fact that most businesses tend to rank lead generation as their top priority, it also reveals that marketing, and marketing departments, don’t get that high a priority. Who are they thinking will generate those leads? Their accounting department? Marketing must always be on the front burner and everything a small business does must be all about the marketing. And, what about the much over hyped customer experience?
- Your marketing department, or team, generally has a firm handle on what the entire company is doing. They also know the company’s customers and where they are as well as what they want and how to go about bringing them into the fold. The other strength of a marketing-first mindset is relevancy. The marketers create the environment, the awareness, the engagement, that keeps a company viable and relevant to the market as well as to the demographic. For these companies, their marketing and their persona are one in the same.
- Recent research released at Entrepreneur magazine indicates that only around 8% of the nation’s CEO’s consider marketing to be any sort of a priority. Your marketing efforts, and results, are nowhere if ownership and management don’t consider it to be vital to their company’s existence. Too much focus on the bottom line without a realization of what, or who, is actually generating that bottom line.
- If things have suddenly swerved into the slow lane, your marketing team should not be the last people you look to. These are the people who are on the front lines and are on hyper-alert. They generally know what is wrong and how to fix it. Your marketing is there to build your brand and name recognition, create great customer experience and confidence as well as to increase market share and influence within the industry. Too many businesses keep their marketing and sales people separated. This is always a huge mistake. These are two powerful forces that should always be allied because, when they are, an increase in traffic and conversions are always sure to follow.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
