MARKETING: ESSENTIAL FOR BUSINESS GROWTH?
During the start-up process entrepreneurs have to overcome many factors to get their business up and running; however business owners are now discovering that one of the biggest, and most important, challenges of starting a business happens once the business is trading – attracting and retaining customers!
It sounds simple but this crucial factor, which often gets overlooked by more pressing problems, can make or break your business. If people don’t know about your business, how can they become customers? And if you don’t have any customers, then how is your business going to make money? And if it isn’t making money, how are you going to keep your business going? These issues are not unique to start-ups; existing businesses must have an adaptive marketing strategy too!
In order to enter the marketplace, and stay there, successfully alongside the competition, SMEs have to get their name known – and for the right reasons.
Marketing is essential when introducing and promoting a product, service or business to potential customers because without it customers would never know about you and what you have to offer; but marketing does so much more than just get the word out. Marketing can impact sales, it can create a healthy competition between businesses and it can positively influence a company’s reputation.
Businesses need to promote themselves, as well as their current offers and promotions, to show how they match up next to the competition, which for SMEs is increasingly important. SMEs also have to work harder to grow within the market, being careful to not get bypassed by these well-known companies that already have a loyal customer base. Building a solid, positive, reputation is the key to this because the way customers view a company influences the way customers buy from them. An effective marketing strategy, with positive reinforcements, can build a business’ image and create a strong and credible reputation for them that allows them to compete with their competitors and get their name noticed; which in turn can help boost their customers and sales.
However many SMEs overlook marketing and cut in from their budgets because they can’t afford something that isn’t a necessity– but it is! Marketing can be expensive but it is vital for attracting and keeping customers, and that is why the Growth Voucher programme is ideal for businesses that are in need of some professional, marketing advice.
Growth Vouchers is a government research initiative that provides strategic business advice to England’s micro, small and medium businesses across 5 business categories: Marketing, attracting and keeping customers, Raising finance and managing cash flow, Making the most of digital technology, Improving leadership and management skills and Recruiting and developing staff. The programme looks to support SMEs by offering up to £2,000 match funding to be spent on strategic business advice to aid their growth and development.
A marketing Growth Voucher cannot be spent on designing specific marketing campaigns, copywriting, building websites, undertaking social media campaigns or carrying out market research or training. The Growth Voucher is to be spent with an accredited supplier who will give advice on how to research existing and potential customers, establish crucial insights from business and customer data, develop and improve new products/services from customer’s needs, define communication plans for the target audience and establish a series of processes to help close a sale.
Carolyn Burchell, founder of Composure Accounting, received a Growth Voucher for marketing and said “I implemented the marketing strategy in my first follow-up meeting; it was a great success and resulted in a new client very easily.”
To find out more about the Growth Voucher programme, to read client case studies and to apply for your voucher, please visithttp://www.enterprisefirst.co.uk/services/growth-vouchers/
Chloe Hodson – Marketing Coordinator