WHY YOUR SMALL BUSINESS NEEDS MARKETING PROFESSIONALS
Ensure you get the best marketing results by hiring a copywriter, graphic designer, digital marketer or SEO consultant to optimize your marketing strategy.
As a small business, marketing should be a key focus area for building your company. "I don't have time!" I get it, it feels impossible to focus on marketing the day-to-day juggling of a small business owner. I mean you got employees, customers and cash flow all just eating away at your precious time harder than your Uncle Jack hitting the finger buffet at your Aunt Jill's wedding! Although it's tempting for you to try and do all your small business marketing yourself (whenever that will be!), this is one of the biggest mistakes small business owners make! You wouldn't trust Gary next door to do your plumbing after watching a few YouTube videos, so don't trust your marketing (you know, the lifeline of your business!) to someone with the same level of experience! Having an in-house marketing team is difficult, as a small business, so consider outsourcing at first. Although it is also hard to be outsourcing as a small business sometimes, it is even harder to survive and grow if you have no customers coming in or have wasted money on a lacklustre marketing strategy. Free up your time and let the professionals do your marketing for you! So, let's talk about the type of marketing professionals you can hire. Don't be scared by the thought that you need all 5 marketing professionals at once; most of them have understandings across the other specialities so they can offer some advice on everything. As with any small business projects, your marketing requires a careful strategy so only hire whom you need!
3RD PARTY MARKETING PROFESSIONALS
Copywriting is writing the marketing text. Although this sounds simple, copywriters need to match your brand, the ad size, the design and your target audience to get the required action.
You need to be using professional copywriters because:
They create a want for your product
Nothing is more of a turnoff to prospective customers than marketing that isn’t about them. Only describing how great you, or your product, are is a huge marketing mistake. It’s about them.
Copywriters use subtle persuasion to bypass your customers’ “this is an ad” defence, realise that they need your product to resolve their problem and then take the action you want!
They analyse your target audience effectively
People buying a car need more than those buying a drink. Equally, selling a car to your Uncle Jack (when he eventually leaves that buffet!) needs a different approach to selling one to your Aunt Jill!
Copywriters are experts at assessing your target audience so that they can subtly sell the benefits of your product or service on a more emotional level before justifying the sale with features.
They own your brand voice
Unless you are the only one writing for your small business, it is going to be obvious that your brand’s voice isn’t consistent. Trust is hard when you don’t know a person’s personality!
Copywriters immerse themselves in your brand’s identity to ensure that any writing sounds like it came from your company. Create a tone guide with one, it will serve you indefinitely!
SEO Copywriting
Although it is a lot more than just keywords on a page, SEO is the buzzword for small business digital marketing. Without site traffic, the best copywriting won’t be shown to anybody.
SEO copywriters know how to pick your keywords, where to put them and how to make them (and your links!) fold into the copy so that they don’t interfere with the user experience!
They get the spelling and grammar correct
The only thing that is worse than an ad that uses bad spelling, is one that doesn’t make any sense at all. Adverts with errors automatically detract from marketing your product!
As well as correct spelling and grammar, copywriters will match the text formats to both the design and other copy. This ensures that your reader gets consistency from your marketing.
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
They understand colour theory
Colours affect the way that we perceive information, just as much as text does. If the colour of an advert or a thumbnail on Instagram doesn’t catch the eye, the copy will never be read! Graphic designers will work to make the colour scheme of your brand (you have a colour scheme, right?) work across your marketing so that your brand identity is recognisable.
They are layout specialists
Ads that look too “busy” will confuse your reader and make the copy, and your marketing, ineffective. Part of good marketing is that your content is easily consumed by the reader. Fonts, sizing and “white space” are all tools of the graphic designer. They will layout the elements of your ad to flow easy, making it look less like algebra and more like 2+2=4.
Web Design
Most graphic designers also work in web design and will have knowledge in HTML and CSS coding. Optimising this makes your site more responsive to screen sizes and mobile viewing. Websites that are responsive and load quickly are more likely to retain viewers and increase conversions. Having a good web designer is a must for online and digital marketing!
Image editing and quality control
Images that go out of focus or pixelate on adjustment will detract from your marketing. Image quality over different devices, or when printing on different sizes, is essential. Using graphic design software and editing to create vector images, graphic designers ensure that your images remain crystal clear across all of your marketing channels.
SEO CONSULTANT
They look at more than just the keywords
SEO newbies will tell you keywords are king. Just keyword stuff your page fuller than the family on Boxing Day and you’ll see your searches lift off! I’m sorry to tell you, the launch is cancelled. Google has become smarter about keyword stuffing for SEO marketing. SEO consultants also need to use brand identity, site authority, tags, links, content usefulness and more to improve your SEO.
They find simple mistakes that hurt your SEO
Did you know your SEO can be hurt by something as simple as your address showing differently on 2 different sites? SEO consultants look at everything to see what is impacting you. Before looking at anything technical, an SEO consultant will check your site and company for inconsistencies or quick-win areas. Never assume the solution cannot be a simple one!
They understand SEO across multiple platforms
It’s not one size fits all! SEO for Google is different from YouTube, which is different from… You get the idea! SEO consultants use your digital marketing strategy to take the best action for you. Generally, website SEO is for Google as the largest search engine provider in the world, but your SEO consultant will advise the other things to bear in mind for your type of content.
The really good ones understand coding
This is for advanced digital marketing, where the SEO consultant is working with a developer on the website. Knowing the impacts of any coding changes will help with the SEO strategy. SEO coding involves telling search engine crawlers where information is on your site to ensure that it is shown. SEO consultants needing changes affects the developers schedule!
DIGITAL MARKETER
Digital marketers need to have a basic understanding of all of the other marketing areas, as well as experience in marketing performance metrics, paid advertising and analytics.
You need digital marketers because:
They know how to track and optimise your marketing
A major advantage of digital marketing is the ability to track the performance of every piece of advertising so that you know what is bringing in clients and giving you the best return.
Digital marketers are able to test marketing content against one another (AKA: A/B testing) to establish what works best, before developing the best-performing ones even further.
They can set up your paid digital marketing the best way for you
Paid digital marketing methods, like Google Ads, have many options for how your advertising will be distributed. Without a digital marketer, you can lose money on ineffective advertising.
Targeted digital marketing utilises all aspects of your ads, customer behaviour and the correct advertising channels in order to get the best return on your marketing investments.
They grow your small business organically
Good digital marketing includes free marketing. SEO techniques, social media strategy and customer feedback methods all provide free marketing for your small business.
Getting your business seen and talked about, for free, builds “social proof” with prospective customers. Having a digital marketer leverage your existing customers will get you more!
They can be counted on for big projects too
Because digital marketers understand other marketing specialities, they are good project managers. Meet with the team to define your project objectives, then let them take over.
Being able to leave a marketing project and get on with managing your small business is invaluable. You catch up on the invoicing and they’ll put more on your desk (sorry, not sorry!)
Expert Strategists
Digital marketers have considerable training and expertise over a variety of marketing channels. This means they know the best approach for marketing your small business.
A digital marketing strategy can be complex, but a digital marketer will work with you to define your short and long-term goals so that you can effectively build your small business.