April 18, 2008

Marketing is an investment, not a cost

by Brian Turner

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I’ve really begun to notice how many people visit business forums, and effectively state the following:

1. They have no marketing budget
2. They have no marketing plan
3. They have no marketing knowledge
4. Can someone please tell them for free how to rank top on Google?

In a service sector where word of mouth can carry weight, or in a local business where a little offline advertising is underway, then sure this approach makes sense - because there is already a marketing force at work that will help carry the business in some way regardless.

However, if selling products online - whether B2B or B2C - but with no budget or actionable diverse strategy, then I really don’t think anyone taking this approach has a viable business - certainly not in the short-term.

In the long term - sure, if such people can stick it out, they’ll probably be laughing after a couple of years - at least they will have had the chance to develop asset value to their presence and take time to learn various marketing options, such as leveraging social media.

However, it makes no business sense to follow the opening plan in the short-term in my opinion - and I’ve stated this to a few posters across business forums now.

We all started small - heck, I started off with nothing more than a £20 reseller hosting account a few years ago. I reinvested most of my first income into the business - a payment gateway, more webhosting, new domains, websites, freelancers, etc - and now I’m providing marketing services to high street banks.

You have to be prepared to invest in your business - because that’s what te future demands for any business to grow.

Any when it comes to marketing, whatever the form - whether mailshots, email, pay per click, serch engine optimisation, social media, word of mouth, viral, etc etc etc - these are not costs, they are investments.

Without investment, you have little or no opportunity to grow your company.

Discuss this in the Internet Business forums

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