When you’re managing a small business or nonprofit, hiring an in-house marketing expert can feel like a just-out-of-reach expense. You might fill the gaps with your own marketing background, interns, volunteers, or the combined lackluster efforts of people who definitely don’t have marketing in their job descriptions. It’s a, let’s call it, scrappy approach. Meanwhile, you know you need to ramp up your marketing efforts to help you grow. A conundrum! Where do you even begin?
Start with what you’re already doing well.
Odds are you already have more marketing efforts underway than you realize. That’s because the basis of any good marketing is relationship building. So, before you go off to register for that SEO course to personally revamp your website, pause and consider your marketing assets. From the photos you take at every fundraising event to the really interesting person you met in grad school who always checks in on your work, you have raw material to inventory.
A few questions to ask:
What relationships can be turned into partnerships (from casual to official)?
What do people respond to the most?
What do you like to talk about the most?
What kinds of marketing are you already doing well (or at least consistently)? This could be social media, events, customer relationship management, tips and tricks, sales pitches.
Really want to know what you’re doing well? ASK! Field a survey, float an Instagram story poll, call your clients.
Consider what you have the capacity to grow
Well, really what you have the capacity to focus on consistently with the intent to grow.
Now that you know you actually have a knack for collaborations or social media, or what have you, dive a little deeper.
What resources do you currently have working on it?
Is there someone else who could take over some or all of the work? At what cost?
What would it look like to do really well with this particular tactic?
What other benefits would you see by focusing on it?
Whatever looks the best, pick that, and start there.
While you’re at it, decide on something to stop doing, too
The likeliest way to find the capacity to get really good at email or instagram or community events is to stop doing something else. But FOMO is real, and stopping something will always be emotional for someone. Some things to consider when it comes time to cutting back are:
Is it dated? It might be something that’s been going on for so long it runs on inertia and a waning group of volunteers, or something that has to completely change for a post-pandemic world. Rather than revamping, consider retiring.
Does it relate to what you’ve decided to focus on? If you’re great at events, you’re still going to want to be great at emails. But if you’re great at social media, do you need to be great at direct mail right now, too?
Whatever it might be, make the choice with real conviction. Then clear those decks, learn your strengths and start to focus one step at a time.
Feeling more certain than ever that you’re in over your head?
You might be ready to bring in a marketing consultant. But then you have to decide which kind! This post will help you take the next step.
Your writing prompt is:
When I communicate with my most important audience I want them to feel…