What now for local businesses? Savvy marketing is key.
Lockdown hurt. It hurt our pocket and I’m pretty sure it hurt yours too.
Pre-lockdown, it looked like we’d be able to trade online if not in store so some retail and manufacturing businesses were forced into investing into an online solution super-fast. Others who were already online managed to sell goods to be delivered after lockdown but for many non-essential products and services - the sales just stopped.
Now we’re out, we’re all aware that businesses are struggling near to home (Queenstown and Central Lakes, Invercargill and Southland are the obvious ones). We’re pretty well insulated here in the Waitaki - last week’s Oamaru Mail showed us that there are plenty of jobs around.
Still, the wage subsidy runs out in September and our whole country might be looking very different around then. So what now for local businesses? Especially our small ones? Well, now’s the time to pull together and get our marketing savvy on.
Before I moved to Oamaru, a partner and I started a business to teach business owners the marketing essentials they really need to know. Her health and my move meant we gave it up for a time. Right now though, I’m going to dust it off and deliver it locally and here’s why.
Nobody ever makes a second best decision
A wise man once told me that you never make a second best decision. He said, “unless you’re clinically insane, you will never think to yourself, there’s my best decision so I think I’ll do something else. Every decision you have ever made was the best available option for you, as far as you knew, at the time”.
The basic message is that if we want to make ‘best’ decisions, the one thing we can do is work harder to understand all our available options.
Nobody knows it all but when you don’t know what you don’t know - you can’t be confident that your choice is the best one for you. Fact. That means it’s worth your time to get your head around modern marketing so you have the information you need to be confident that any marketing investment you make is actually, your best decision.
Small business here is not small business everywhere
I’ve worked in Auckland, Wellington & Oamaru, London, Cardiff and Bristol, even Buenos Aires and no two places operate the same way. My clients in 25+ years of copywriting have had markets all over the world - they all operate differently when it comes to marketing and selling the ‘goods’.
Marketing companies come to New Zealand from the US or the UK tell our business owners that they have a marketing solution for them. But small business in the US means fewer than 500 employees. In the UK, it means fewer than 50 employees. In New Zealand it means fewer than 20 employees and for most small businesses (90%) that really means one to five people in their whole team.
What works in one place doesn’t necessarily work in another. There are some absolute truths when it comes to marketing but you won’t find them with the latest pushy upsell.
The whole world and every economy has changed
Have you ever marketed your business in a global pandemic before? Do people want the same things? Do they want things for the same reasons?
We are all in brand new, uncharted territory. Uncharted territory is an exciting place to be if you’re part of a trusted group. It’s a pretty shitty place to be on your own though.
In 25+ years, I’ve learned a lot about marketing in all sorts of places with all kinds of products and services and I’ve taught a lot, from individual tutoring to lecturing at Polytech. I could tell you the absolute truths I mentioned above but I think our time will be better spent applying them to your real business in our real new world.
Last year, Forbes* produced an article stating that “there have been a number of studies going back nearly one century that point out the advantages of maintaining or even increasing ad budgets during a weaker economy. Those advertisers that maintained or grew their ad spending increased sales and market share during the recession and afterwards.”
So now really is the most important time to get your head around modern marketing - what will and won’t work for your business in today’s business climate.
To that end, The Business Hive is launching a Marketing Bootcamp starting Monday, 20th July. It’s a 10-week programme of doing. That means bite-sized but essential cornerstones of modern marketing and an opportunity to implement them in your business during the following week.
Together, we’re going to build a business community that has confidence around marketing and can tell great marketing opportunities from the latest snake oil while getting the results we want and need.
Important Information
The programme costs $450 plus GST for the whole 10 weeks.
Late starters will only be accepted with the agreement of the whole group.
The maximum capacity is 12 because every participant is welcome to bring one teenager for FREE. It doesn't have to be your own teenager, any teenager you think could benefit from this learning experience can buddy up with you at no extra cost!
To register and pay online click here. If you would like to register and pay by invoice please email us.
*Forbes convenes and curates the most influential leaders and entrepreneurs who are driving change, transforming business and making a significant impact on the world.
