The Alternatives to Marketing
28th August 2012
Should you do marketing? It’s a question many businesses ask themselves at least once. Marketing can seem costly, and it could take a lot of effort, but if you decide not to do it then what are the alternatives?
Really, there are only two:
1. Hire Sales People
A majority of businesses, even if they do marketing, employ sales people to promote their product through telesales or field sales. Often, sales people make outbound calls in an attempt to promote a service or product and close the sale.
Sales people often generate their own leads, which don’t always convert. Whilst it’s easy to measure the success of a salesperson by the revenue they generate, they’ll waste a lot of time chasing cold leads.
You could make your sales process more effective by generating warm leads through marketing. When people already know what you do, they’re more likely to agree to try or buy your product or service.
2. Don’t do any marketing
If you already have business contacts, you’ll be able to use them without marketing to a new audience, but if you don’t do any marketing then you’ll find it very hard to reach new customers and to grow your business. Marketing will get your name out to the right people, bringing in new customers.
In reality, you’ll be lucky to find any business in existence that can honestly say they don’t do any marketing. In its simplest form, it starts with putting a sign on your office door or creating your company website, though you can do much more to market your business successfully. If you don’t think you’ve got the time to spend on marketing, or the resource to make your marketing effective, then it’s time to call in the experts.
