bigblueyes marketing outsourcing

Whilst speaking to a number of clients I’ve discovered that more and more of them need help with all elements of their businesses promotion.  Too often my approach has been centred around a core offering which doesn’t totally fulfill the needs of small businesses. Many business owners say I want a website or direct mail campaign without considering what other marketing is happening in the business and how that is effecting business growth.

I’ve recently increased my involvement with a local retailer to oversee all of his marketing spend and measure the results.  This has come on the back of a meeting with a big player in the listings market with whom he spent £18K last year .  What return on this investment has he had?  Well a number of phone calls and clicks on his website but how much real profit he gained is uncertain. 

As I’ve been working on a number of smaller projects with him he’s asked me to step in and help him further and it’s at this point the realisation hit me.  This is what small business owners really need.  It’s not about putting an email campaign together or creating a fantastic new website they need to better understand how they market, what this costs and what benefit they get from it!!

Many don’t have the time to research what strategies to employ when marketing their business and do what they’ve always done and never look into the effect of it. The resource just isn’t available in most small businesses and the expense of employing someone full time is just not possible.

It’s in this role I feel that I can add real value and hope to make a massive difference to spend and the impact it has.

I’m now rationalising all of their output, have halved his budget and am attempting to bring some clarity to a previously fragmented approach.  This we both feel will benefit the business by allowing me to try new things, learn what works for him and focus my efforts there. 

It doesn’t have to be a big spend either, if every business owner out there looked at what they spend on adhoc adverts in newspapers, local classifieds and magazines, radio, online advertising, direct mail etc , etc they’d probably be shocked at how much, and the lack of information relating to the success of this spend. 

Many business owners simply don’t have the time to be bothered with it, their main focus is running the business.  What I now intend to do is help businesses with this, address their spend and work with them to employ the right tactics to improve profitability and client retention.  And while I do this the business owner can concentrate on doing what they do best and leave the business of promoting their services to me!!