Marketing is The Oxygen, The Elixir, The Mother’s Milk That Keeps Your Business Alive and Thriving

Yes, I get it, I’ve heard it before, you don’t like sales, marketing or advertising. Maybe you just don’t feel confident in your marketing abilities. However, promoting your products or services is not an optional luxury — it’s an essential requirement for attracting customers and driving sales.

Let that sink in a bit — marketing is not a luxury or an extra, it’s an essential part of business. It’s necessary.

No matter how great your products or offerings are, the general public won’t somehow magically find your business unless you put in the effort to let them know you exist.

It’s like wanting to get married but you never leave your house to let potential partners know how great you are or that you even exist. Get it?

Too many entrepreneurs try to minimize marketing spend, either because of budget constraints or a personal dislike of marketing. This is a big mistake that can doom potentially successful businesses. Doom I tell ya, doom! (sorry, was feeling dramatic)

You have to make marketing an essential or necessary part of your operations and business plan from day one.

How Much Should You Invest in Marketing?

For new businesses, marketing experts recommend allocating 12–20% of projected gross revenue to marketing activities. Established companies typically allocate 5–15% of actual gross revenue. Consumer businesses and those in highly competitive spaces may need to budget toward the higher end of these ranges.

In terms of time and effort, solopreneurs should expect to spend 20–30% of their time on marketing when just starting out. As you grow, you’ll likely need to hire dedicated marketing personnel or outsource components like advertising, social media, content creation etc.

Sustained, Focused Effort

Successfully promoting a business requires sustained, focused effort across multiple channels. This consistency is absolutely vital and cannot be overstated.

Too many businesses make the mistake of going all-in with a burst of marketing for a new launch or campaign, only to then fade back into obscurity. This confused start-and-stop approach does little to solidify mindshare and brand recognition with consumers.

Effective marketing is an ongoing process that demands diligence and discipline. You must continuously reinforce your core brand messaging and maintain a steady presence through your prioritized marketing channels.

Committed consistency allows you to steadily build familiarity and momentum. Each new advertisement or promotion builds upon the last, compounding your visibility and credibility over time. Disappearing for months at a time simply because you’ve run one campaign erases any progress and forces you to restart reinventing the wheel with your audience.

Treat marketing as a marathon, not a sprint. Outline a sustainable, multi-channel plan and stick to it relentlessly. This persistent, unified voice is what separates fizzling flashes-in-the-pan from powerhouse brands that endure.

Outsource Your Marketing

Outsourcing Marketing Expertise: If marketing isn’t your strength, the wisest investment you can make is hiring experienced marketing professionals or an agency to drive awareness and demand for your business.

Look at this as paying for vital expertise, similar to how you’d hire an accountant or lawyer. Skilled marketers understand how to build a brand identity, create compelling campaigns, leverage the right platforms and measure effectiveness.

Ramp up marketing for a revenue push or new product launch:

When businesses want to drive a serious spike in revenue or maximize awareness for a new product offering, they often initiate an aggressive, concentrated marketing blitz.

The strategy is to saturate their target market with their branding and messaging through a variety of high-impact channels over a set period of time. This creates ubiquitous visibility and familiarity which increases purchase intent.

You’ve likely experienced examples of these campaigns, where suddenly a particular product or company seems to be everywhere you look — on billboards, TV, radio, websites, etc. The goal is to bombard advertising impressions on the consumer to solidify mindshare.

Major brands frequently utilize these tactics around new product launches, seasonal promotions, or when looking to regain market dominance. While extremely expensive, the impact of blanketing media channels pays off with jumps in brand awareness, consideration, and ultimately market share gains over competitors.

For smaller businesses, this same premise of concentrated, multi-channel promotion can be applied, just on a smaller scale tailored to their marketing budgets and regions. Maintaining sustained visibility is key to converting interested prospects into loyal customers.

Out-Marketing Your Competition

One of the keys to business success is aggressive, creative marketing that allows you to grab mindshare and market share from your competitors. This means going beyond what they are doing in terms of advertising spend, channel diversification, consistent brand messaging, and understanding what motivates your target customers to choose you over others.

So out work and our market your competition.

Wrapping Up:

The bottom line is that you have to market your business proactively and intelligently, whether you enjoy marketing or not.

The marketplace is crowded like never before and being the best kept secret means unsuccessful obscurity or even poverty. Commit yourself and your resources to strategic, sustainable promotion of your brand to drive revenue and growth.

And for information about leaving a legacy, read: How High Standards, Integrity, and Reliability Build Authority for Your Business.

Join Our Marketing Newsletter! Stay updated with the latest marketing ideas, strategies, and best practices delivered to your inbox every other week. Click here to join.

If you have any questions or want to talk through some of these marketing ideas or get help creating them, reach out to me any time at: David@crosscopywriting.com

For expert assistance on marketing your brand, contact CrossCopywriting.com.

For a practical guide to promote Traditional American Values: 20 Ways to Infuse Your Marketing with Strong Work Ethics and Traditional American Values download the guide HERE.

And you can download one of my White Papers here: Harnessing the Power of Advertising Traditional American Values — A Path to Marketing Success