If you've actually thought that, you're not the only one. But one of the worst things you can do as a business owner is to ignore your marketing efforts.
You may be worried about a lot of different things as a business owner, but you still need marketing to get the attention you need in the market. This visibility leads to more prospects being turned into customers, which leads to more profits, which is the formula for staying in business. So, entrepreneurs must market their businesses if they want to stay in business.
In guerrilla marketing, it's a good rule of thumb to spend 60 percent of your marketing budget on current and former customers. After all, they are your best chances of getting something. These people already know, trust, and, hopefully, have faith in you, your business, and its products and services. They've already had a good experience with your company, which makes it more likely that they'll buy from you than a new prospect who doesn't know you and hasn't had a good experience with you yet.
This is how you should spend the last 40% of your marketing budget: 30% should be spent on prospects, and 10% should be used for everyone. All of these spendings should happen at the same time: You need to keep your prospect funnel full while continuing to turn prospects into paying customers. To start, you can use marketing to:
- Get new customers to replace the old ones. People come and go as customers. They leave sometimes because of us, sometimes because of them, and sometimes because of things neither of us could have done anything about. This isn't always easy to predict or plan for. To avoid this, you need to replace your old customers with new ones through marketing. Of course, not everyone you market to will end up buying your product or service. But if you want to get more of those all-important new customers, you have to keep putting your message where they can see it.
A lot of things are done over and over again to make marketing work. If you don't keep trying, you won't get any new customers to replace your old ones, and your business will soon go into what's called a "death spiral." You can't let something like this happen!
- Listen to what your customers want. Imagine for a moment that you've gotten more new customers than you ever thought possible. The good news is that you'll be busy taking care of all of their needs. The bad news is that customers leave a business most often because the business doesn't pay enough attention to them.
So, if you're busy, how can you stay in regular contact with your best customers? Marketing is the answer. You can reach out to them in different ways to show that you're paying attention to them. You can send thank-you cards, special offers, tips and techniques, newsletters, and much more. This kind of marketing lets you stay in touch even when you can't be there in person.
- Keep your customers up-to-date. Now, let's say that your business is growing and you've decided to offer new services and products. Will anyone buy them? Both your current customers and new ones will buy, but they won't if they don't know about your new products. Some ways to get the word out about your new products and services to prospects and customers are through product announcements, press releases, newsletter ads, and ads. Once again, marketing saves the day. Pay attention to your customers, keep them informed and educated, and they will eventually spend all of their money with you.
If you use these guerrilla marketing techniques well, you can keep your marketing costs low and get more for the money you do spend.
