25 Signs You Need Help Marketing The less a person knows about marketing, the easier it is to underestimate it's potential to grow the business.
By Eric Samson Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Marketers find the right audience for your business and convert passive shoppers into active buyers. The most successful companies in the world get ahead of the competition and thrive thanks to quality marketing.
Even if your business is already growing, it can always grow faster. Marketing can help. If you run a company without a marketing team, or have one filled only with junior associates, here are 25 reasons you may want to recruit experienced marketers or hire an agency.
1. You would rather look at company financials than Google Analytics. Data is powerful, but if you do not know how to harness the power of your website analytics you are severely missing out.
2. You get overwhelmed thinking about advertising, content and social media. Your business loses out on a lot of opportunity by not engaging in any marketing activities. Of course, you should not make the even graver mistake of hiring an intern to manage all of these things.
3. Your idea of marketing is a $50 ad in a local newspaper or a $15,000 TV spot. Targeting, you say. What targeting?
4. You either don't know what real-time bidding (RTB) or programmatic buying are, or have never heard of them. Surely, advertising isn't that complicated….
Related: Perform Powerful Personalized Marketing in 4 Easy Steps
5. Your business gets a lot of website traffic but a relatively low number of sales -- less than 1 percent. It is time to polish up your conversion funnel to capture more visitor value.
6. Your site hasn't had a makeover since 2012. In fact, you probably haven't touched it since it was first created.
7. People have a hard time trying to find your company on Google. You shouldn't settle for third or fourth position for your own brand name.
8. You love referral programs such as Uber's "Give $20. Get $20" but the thought doesn't even cross your mind about applying that to your business. It is a lot easier than you think!
9. Email newsletters make you cringe. You are also inclined to hit spam when you get more than one email from a company or its representatives.
10. You rarely survey your customers and simply make assumptions about who they are, what they do, how much they make, where they live, and why they love your brand.
Related: How Long Before Your Customers Trust You? Two Years.
11. You like the idea of having lots of fans and followers on social media, but have no idea how you would even engage them. Funny cat pictures do not count.
12. You are unfamiliar with the terms bounce rate, call-to-action, click through, and impressions. You also think that sort of gibberish wouldn't even apply to your business.
13. Your sales team has a hard time explaining what you do, how your product or service differentiates itself from competitors and applicable use cases for your offerings. Marketing helps provide collateral and copy so others understand your company a lot better.
14. You love a good billboard ad and you hate clicking anything on the web. Wait, seriously?
15. You think you are smarter than your customers. In a day and age where customers have real voice and will not be silenced, you better be prepared to put your ego aside and actively learn from potential buyers.
Related: 5 Keys to Unlocking the Power of Google Analytics
16. You imagine getting your company into The New York Times is impossible to do. It is hard, but by targeting the right writer with the perfect story angle, you can headline the front page of the business section.
17. You are not familiar with inbound marketing or outbound marketing. It is all just advertising, right? Wrong.
18. You enjoy the idea of an endless flow of new customers but regularly forget about engaging your already existing and loyal clients.
19. You create all of your images in Microsoft Paint or PowerPoint. You believe tools such as Canva and Photoshop have too much going on.
20. You wonder why YouTube is so popular. That is because brands that spend money on quality video get tremendous ROI.
Related: 5 Signs That It's Time to Outsource Your Marketing
21. Anything related to marketing is done with a set-it and forget-it philosophy. If it works, why tweak it? Or, if it doesn't work, give it more time. Unfortunately, you only throw away money this way.
22. You haven't heard of Seth Godin, Brian Clark or Dharmesh Shah. You wonder if they are supposed to be reality show stars or something.
23. You believe companies like Charmin, GoPro and American Express would have grown anyways, without needing to invest so heavily in marketing. You'd be wrong.
24. You never thought to tie in the ongoing marketing initiatives you have into a larger, structured campaign. Marketing impact multiplies when tactics are complimentary and cohesive.
25. You hate the idea of a company blog, though you spend a majority of your time reading articles created and published by like-minded brands.
How you promote your business matters and having a qualified marketing team can help you grow your bottom line tenfold. The sooner you invest in marketing, the faster you will be able to leapfrog over the competition. Doesn't that sound like something you might need?
Related: 5 Things CEOs Don't Ask About Marketing, But Should
