The old saying, “the shoemaker’s kids have no shoes” means that the cobbler spends so much time repairing the shoes of his customers that he doesn’t have (or make) the time to repair his children’s shoes.
As most business owners know, it is always difficult to find the time to work ON your business when you also have to work IN your business – especially if you are a small business and wear many hats. You think you will get to your marketing, after you do this, that and the other…but it keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the pile, or half executed with no specific strategy or consistency, whenever you can find a few minutes here and there.
With the slow returning of the economy, your business may already be improving. Your customers/clients may just be starting to trickle in on their own; or the customer base you already had pre-Covid are coming back in a more steady stream; or perhaps you have a product or service that is in such high demand due to the current situation that your business is booming, but through no concerted efforts of your own to find and attract these new customers. But relying only on these scenarios is not setting your business up for long term sustainability, continued growth and increased sales.
We realized that we were the shoemaker’s kids, too. We use all our time to help other businesses grow, which, after all, is what our agency is about. We develop and implement marketing strategies for our clients that are effective and results-driven, whether it’s for building brand recognition, generating leads, increasing SEO, website traffic and social media engagement. Thankfully we were very busy…but too busy to do our own marketing.
Then Covid came…the shutdown slowed our sales and decreased our workload. It stopped us in our tracks. Until we realized it gave us the only helpful thing it could – time. With the time we now had, we conceived 4 things we could do to grow our business, which you can do as well:
Videos
We wrote, recorded and posted videos offering tips and insights into marketing in the new economic environment brought on by Covid, which greatly expanded our SEO, audience reach and engagement since YouTube is the #2 search engine after Google.
Social Media
We implemented a consistent and continual presence on social media instead of sporadic postings and dedicated some of our marketing budget to social media ad spend to target audiences who were not yet following us.
Micro Targeting
We conceived several marketing ideas that consolidated our wide range of services into smaller marketing strategies so that we could target markets segments more specifically to their needs.
Testimonials
We drafted an email to send to current and past clients asking for testimonials, which help boost SEO and inform potential clients of a positive experience, which is a strong factor in their choosing a company/making purchasing decisions.
We have become committed to making time to grow our business and not walk around with holes in our shoes! And we are committed to helping you grow your business if you just don’t have the time.
Laura Jacoby
Partner/701 Creative
701creativellc.com
