In today’s modern business environment of climbing competition and falling consumer attention spans, marketing a business correctly is more important than ever. However, it is virtually impossible for a business to take care of every aspect of a marketing campaign and run its day-to-day operations at the same time.
Below are several critical signs that a business may need a little outside marketing assistance from a professional firm.
1. An inability to analyze results and tweak the marketing strategy
Marketing is an ongoing process, especially for a small business. No single solution will work for all time in the constantly changing environment of the modern business landscape. Because of this, one of the most important aspects of marketing is the ability to analyze previous results and improve upon them without having to halt the campaign altogether.
A small or mid-size business might handle its marketing in-house. However, said business may barely have the time to analyze any of the results garnered by a campaign, much less do it effectively with the use of professional analytics tools. If a business owner does not know how to analyze marketing results or lacks the time to do it, that is a sure sign that the company needs some outside marketing help.
2. An inability to change with updated rules
Most major search engines are constantly switching the rules on the playing field. Businesses that were not able to keep up with the Google Penguin and Panda updates found themselves buried in search engine rankings in the blink of an eye. A little bit of help on the marketing end might have helped them avoid such a fate.
Again, a small business owner who does all the marketing in-house most likely will not have the time to follow blogs to read the latest discussions about search engine changes and activities. The search engines themselves do not issue any official announcements, nor do they consider it their duty to inform anyone when they make a change. This is clearly a situation in which marketing expertise comes in handy.
3. An inability to foresee changes in the marketing landscape
Competition is fierce. Someone (cough cough Google) is always changing the layout of the playing field. Companies are not above placing false comments online that disparage their competition. It is also easy to see when a company is not serving its customers well because of the very public nature of complaints. This allows a company with the right kind of marketing assistance to immediately take advantage of any weaknesses in a competitor’s performance. Companies that do not have the time to manage their reputation online or respond to the challenges of competitors will soon find themselves in a heap of trouble.
4. An inability to run day-to-day operations
Marketing can take up so much time and manpower that businesses have nothing left to serve the customers who need immediate attention. This is a huge disadvantage for the company that does not have the means to do both. If at any point a company begins to lose its current customer base, marketing help is probably in order.
5. An inability to maintain marketing ROI
Any marketing techniques that do not maintain their return on investment must be stopped immediately. However, they first have to be identified, which is usually the job of an outside marketing agency. If a business owner is unable to monitor ROI, then the business is definitely in need of outside assistance.
