Can a small business loan help drive your marketing

Time is Money: When You Need to Spend to Save on Small Business Marketing

Beast Mode Marketing

Most small business owners find they need to wear many hats in their business, from serving customers to directing operations, staff, finances, marketing and more. Even though marketing might not be your forte, the need to attract and retain customers is paramount for growing your business to the next level.

The average small business owner spends about 20 hours each week on digital marketing activities like web, email and social media. Social media marketing alone can take up a significant amount of a small business owner’s time; one out of four say they spend up to 10 hours per week and one in ten spend up to 20 hours per week marketing their business on social channels.

If marketing is not your strength, hiring someone with marketing expertise who has the skills and knowledge to execute on your company’s marketing plan is an obvious way you can spend to save; however, it’s not the only time that spending money could be more efficient – and effective – than spending your own time on promotional activities.

4 Ways Small Business Owners Can Spend to Save on Marketing

• Outsource

Business owners that elect to outsourcing marketing activities in whole or in part can save dozens of hours each week, hours that can be invested in leading their business. Outsourcing may even be preferable to hiring for the long term since costs can be controlled based on budget, and payroll-related expenses are not a factor.

• Paid Social

It’s no secret that social networks have engineered “pay to play” algorithms when it comes to brand reach. Instead of spending hours at the computer posting and reposting content multiple times across multiple channels in the hope your content will make it into the feed of your followers, sponsor those posts which have the most engaging content to keep them working around the clock to drive traffic to your site, engage and add new followers.

• Media or Publicity Stunt

Public relations events that have the “wow” factor put the spotlight on your business, helping you build brand awareness and create connections with your target audiences. Working with a public relations consultant or agency can ensure you get the most bang for your PR buck in choosing the right type of event and maximizing exposure with your target market.

• Paid Search (SEM) and SEO

If you, like most business owners, need to get found online by more people in your target markets, spending money to make sure your website is optimized for search or paying to have your site’s content displayed in relevant user internet searches can be a very effective way to drive conversions online.

Paying for Marketing on a Tight Budget

Without working capital, you may have to sit on the sidelines and watch as competitors gain market share. In many cases it’s not a lack of desire, but a lack of budget that curtails marketing efforts and limits ROI (return on investment). Here are twoquestions to answer as you consider whether you should wait until you have built up financial reserves which can be allocated to marketing or whether using working capital financing to fund marketing activities would be best for your business.

• What is the Lost Opportunity Cost

In business, the opportunity cost refers to what you could accomplish if money and resources were not an issue. In other words, if you postpone marketing activities due to budget, what are the gains you are giving up? If the opportunity cost of not using financing to fund marketing represents significant loss of income that could be earned as a result, using credit is preferable than delaying your marketing plan.

Lost revenue isn’t the only opportunity cost. For instance, if you want to outsource some or all of your marketing, you might not only make more money but also save a significant amount of time as a result. In this case, the lost opportunity cost is all of the other ways you could invest your time if you were not spending it on marketing activities.

• What are the Short- and Long-Term Projections?

Henry Ford once said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” It means that your business will continue to get the same return on investment it is now unless you do something new. If your business isn’t growing or it isn’t growing as fast as you would like, leveraging credit to make your marketing impact bigger and more efficient could help you grow to the next level.

As a small business owner, your most valuable resource is time and each hour of your work day can only be spent once. Understanding the benefits of spending money in order to not only make more money but reclaim time as well can help you determine how best to invest both.