Be the labor…

When I was growing up, my Dad always used to say,

“Be the labor great or small, do it well… or not at all.” 

These words were usually spoken when I decided I was too tired to finish raking the leaves in our yard or when my room was “clean enough.”   Little did I know I’d be using them as the theme of my first blog post, and that they would make perfect sense.

How does my Dad’s adage factor into YOUR small business marketing?  It’s simple really.  Working with small businesses, I talk to many business owners who are faced with a dillema: they KNOW that they need to market their business, but at the end of the day, they are expending all of their resources and energy on simply RUNNING the business.  At the same time,  they are being bombarded with questions:

“Are you on Facebook?”

“Do you tweet out your specials?”

“Can I register on your website?”

“When is your next sale planned?  Will you be advertising it?”

“Can I find you on LinkedIn?”

“Can I purchase on your website?”

In an effort to be all things to all people, business owners will usually jump in and try to respond to these types of requests, but they find that the day-to-day operations of their business keeps them from staying on top of a million different social media outlets and marketing functions.  Let’s face it.  Without a full-time staff, it would be virtually impossible to be current on all channels all the time.  Did you know, on average, consumers’ accepted response time to social media posts is about one hour, regardless of the time or day they post?

Be the labor great or small, do it well… or not at all. Have a plan and then follow through, follow through, follow through.

I tell my clients to have a plan. Choose the channels that are most appropriate for YOUR audience, and do them well.  Your customers or clients will forgive you for NOT being on Twitter, but they won’t be so quick to forget if you never responded to the  comments they tweeted.   Be the labor big or small, do it well… or not at all.  Choose to have a regular e-mail campaign or post your new arrivals to Instagram each week, but whatever you choose, follow through, follow through, follow through.  When it comes to marketing, your customers will value consistency over variety.

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