Sales and Marketing more important than ever in this times

When small businesses face the reality of difficult times they look for ways to cut their expenses, and rightly so. Marketing is always in the short list to cut, and even though is not always the best thing to do, in many ways is a move in the right direction.

Most small businesses spend their marketing money with no tracking system in place. This means that the only have a feeling that something is working or not. Unfortunately, putting more money into something that is not working doesn't change the fact that it doesn't work. So when the feeling starts to go away, like in difficult times for example, then one of the first things to go is a big piece of the marketing budget.

But, what is a small business owner to do? Well, one of the things is to do more marketing but in a more organize way.

First, he should create a tracking system from which to filter the efficiency of each campaign. This can be as easy as asking the customer how did they find about you? Or it can be as elaborated as having different phone numbers and calls saved to get a more accurate picture of what's going on with each marketing piece. Second, is to get in the habit of creating at least two samples of each promotion with different offers, headlines or even paper or envelopes, and perform a test to see which one pulls more. Personally, I don't spend any money unless I can get a small test sample. Once the result is verified then I feel very confident about deploying as much money as I can into successful marketing campaigns.

Second, get as many different strategies out there with mini budgets for each one of them. If you think about it and take the vantage point of a long term view, finding the stuff that works can be as important for your business as finding what doesn't work.

And finally, make sure you have a compelling story to tell and a compelling reason your target should do business with you now.

Bets wishes and have fun and make more money with your marketing.