I know I need to do some marketing. Where do I start?

I know I need to do some marketing. But where do I start?

I’ve marketed to small businesses before, particularly during my time working in business lending, and one thing I came to understand is just how personal a small business can be.

The owner’s personality, values and way of doing things are often reflected in the business itself. They’re part of the community they work in. They know many of their customers personally. Their reputation matters. And the way they look after people is often one of the reasons customers keep coming back.

Marketing needs to reflect that.

The way the business communicates, the language it uses and how it presents itself should feel like the business people experience when they actually deal with you. If you’re friendly, straightforward and easy to deal with in person, but your website sounds stiff and corporate, something doesn’t quite add up.

But small business owners also wear a lot of hats.

Marketing might have had plenty of attention when you first started. You got a logo made, built a website, set up your social pages and perhaps did some local advertising.

Then you got busy running the business.

Customers needed looking after. Quotes needed doing. Staff came along. There were suppliers, invoices, jobs and all the other things that somehow fill a day.

Marketing slipped down the list.

And that’s completely understandable. The interesting thing is that while the marketing has been sitting there, the business itself probably hasn’t stood still.

You might offer different services now. You may have learnt which customers you really enjoy working with and which work is most valuable to you. Your reputation might have grown. The area you service may have expanded. Perhaps you’ve added staff, changed the way you work or simply become much clearer about the kind of business you want to be.

But your marketing might still be telling the story of the business you were three or five years ago.

That’s often the point where the thought creeps in:

I really need to do some marketing.

And then comes the harder part.

Where do I start?

My answer usually isn’t Facebook. Or Google Ads. Or a new website.

I’d start by looking at your customers.

Start with who you’re actually trying to reach

This sounds basic, but it makes almost every marketing decision that follows easier.

Who are your customers today?

Not necessarily the customers you imagined when you started the business. The people who are actually buying from you now.

Which customers come back? Which ones recommend you? What kind of work do you want more of? What do people seem to value about your business? Why do they choose you when there are other businesses they could use?

And how are they finding you in the first place?

You probably already know quite a lot of the answers. It just might not be written down anywhere.

Look at your recent enquiries. Think about your best customers. Look at the jobs or sales you've had over the past year. Talk to the people in your business who deal with customers every day. Have a look through your customer database, inbox or even your Google reviews.

What do people actually say about you?

You don’t need to invent a customer called “Sarah, 42, who enjoys yoga and flat whites” unless knowing those things genuinely helps you sell something.

What I want to understand is much more practical.

Who buys from you? What matters to them? What makes them choose you? Where can we reach more people like them?

Once we know that, we can start making sensible decisions about the marketing.

Then I’d look at what you already have

I wouldn’t assume we need to throw everything out and start again.

I’d want to see your website. Your Google presence. Your social channels. Your email database if you have one. Any advertising you’re doing. Sponsorships, partnerships, brochures, signage or regular communications you send to customers.

And I’d look at all of it through the customer we’ve just talked about.

Does your website make it obvious what you do and why someone should choose you?

Does the way you communicate actually sound like your business?

Are you showing the things your customers care about, or the things you assume they care about?

Are people finding you in the places they’re actually looking?

And perhaps there are opportunities sitting there that haven't been touched for a while.

You might have hundreds of previous customers who haven’t heard from you in years. If they had a good experience with you, talking to them again could make more sense than immediately spending money finding strangers.

Maybe most of your new business comes through recommendations. Rather than suddenly deciding you need to post on Instagram every day, perhaps we should look at why people recommend you and how we can create more opportunities for that to happen.

Your website might need replacing. But it might also just need better photos, clearer information or a refresh so it reflects the business you run today.

That’s why I’m wary of starting with the marketing channel.

Starting with “We need to do Facebook” or “We should run some Google Ads” is already jumping ahead.

First I want to understand who we need to reach and what we're trying to achieve.

Then we work out how.

You probably don’t need to do everything

There’s a lot of marketing advice aimed at small businesses.

Post more. Make videos. Send emails. Start a newsletter. Improve your SEO. Run ads. Get on TikTok. Ask for reviews. Write blogs.

You could spend your entire week doing marketing and still feel like there’s something you’ve missed.

That’s not particularly helpful when you also have a business to run.

I’d rather work out the few things that are most likely to matter for your business and do those properly.

That could mean finding new customers. It could mean getting previous customers to come back. It might be improving how you show up when someone searches for you, getting clearer about what you say on your website, or simply putting some structure around marketing that has become a bit ad hoc over the years.

There isn't one answer that applies to every small business.

And that's really the work.

If you've reached the point where you know your marketing needs some attention but you're not sure what that actually means, I can help you work through it.

We’ll look at the business you have today, the customers you want more of and what you’re already doing.

Then we'll work out where your marketing effort is best spent.