So your business is up and running. You’ve got a base of clients who treat you well and keep you in the black. You don’t have to do anything else!
Provided people stop having kids.
The main reason you need marketing is the same thing that makes the world go round. It’s the birds and the bees. Furthermore, your customer base is getting older, just like you. They’re not going to stay in your company’s record book forever. They might move away; they might croak.
Challenges are opportunities
While the flux of humanity threatens your current customer base, it also brings hope. New people move into your market every day.
Is the word of mouth really going to work for them?
And just as people die, people make new people all the time. There’s a whole group of people who are just entering the age your customer base was at when they first sought you out. Your market is a river, and it’s never the same river twice.
We all get pushed down that river. Your existing customer base can’t take care of you forever. But as long as people keep having kids, there’s a new and growing market to talk to. All it takes is a little jump upstream.
Stay young
Traditional is okay. Dated is not. Even if you’re a business that establishes itself on old-fashioned or nostalgic premises, the people you do business with are always on the cutting edge. Hold on to all the traditions you want – just as long as it doesn’t get in the way of customers working with you on their terms.
Not having a website, not taking credit cards, not updating your advertising – it’s not retro. It’s alienating.
Marketing vs. customer service
Marketing is for everybody. Marketing and customer service really accomplish the same thing. But where customer service is reactive, marketing is proactive.
In either case, you’re still out to serve the market with the very best. Where customer service is child care, marketing is courtship. Where customer service has to be consistent, keenly receptive, and respectful, marketing is authentic and creative. The analogies to the birds and the bees run deep.
There’s no shelf life on your business’s vitality! Are you really ready to stop dating? To take yourself off the market? You’ve got lots to say. It takes a lot to break out of the rat race and open your doors to serve people with your insights. You wouldn’t have done it in the first place if you didn’t think it was valuable!
All it takes is showing people that value.
In the old days, cobblers would demonstrate their value by hanging a sign that said “Cobbler.” Heaven helps them if they didn’t deliver. These days it takes more than that. But it’s totally within your reach.
The cost of not marketing
For those with their eyes on the bottom line I’ll get right to the point: not marketing costs you money. It’s money you never knew you had – the trickiest to keep track of. If you’re not marketing, you’re running the very real risk of your business dying with you.
You want better.
Priming a business for marketing is in many ways easier than priming a person for the world of dating. Don’t worry if it’s been a long time since you’ve “hit the scene.” Marketers know that sharing the value of their work and staying up to date is a win-win. Because of that, we love to talk to each other.
There’s a way for you to tap the power of a team of marketing professionals at the cost of just one marketing employee. And, like a lot of things, it never works if you don’t reach out.