Most businesses have some form of debt, especially when they’re just starting out and haven’t built up a client base yet. So how can marketing help combat this? Take a look…
Whilst a little debt is just part of running a business, it’s easy for it to get out of control if you don’t manage it and don’t make enough money to keep your debt low. There are lots of ways to keep your company debt low, but the most powerful tool by far is marketing.
If you’re already in a bad position, the companies you owe money to might hire professionals who recover business debt to get the money back from you. So, to avoid this scenario, you should implement marketing into your company as soon as possible.
In this post, we’re going to explain exactly how it can help you do that.
How Can Marketing Help You Avoid Company Debt?
Marketing is one of those things lots of companies don’t put the time into. However, setting up shop and putting a sign up isn’t enough anymore, and is a sure-fire way to end up in company debt.
In today’s digital world, marketing is more important than ever, with websites taking over the traditional marketplace. To give you a better idea of exactly how marketing helps businesses stay out of debt in 2021, here are 10 ways it can do that:
1. Informs your audience
Today’s marketplace is more crowded than ever. So, in order to get your message out to your target audience, you need marketing.
You need to explain to your customers why they should choose your business over your competitors’. Consider these questions:
- How do you serve the needs of your customers?
- Do you have a story of how the business got started that could resonate with people?
- What are the core values of your company that your audience can relate to?
Answering these questions, and others through a good marketing strategy, gives you the best chance to keep out of company debt.
2. Engages with them
Simply serving a customer and letting them go on their way isn’t enough to keep them coming back for more. If you go out for a meal and the owner asks you about your day, you’re more likely to go back there because of the engagement.
With digital marketing, you can take this one step further by following up on their experience. You can send them follow-up emails to help you keep a regular customer base who will come back through your door and keep you out of company debt.
3. Builds your reputation
Speaking of reputation, building a good one is the key to a successful, debt-free business. Because marketing spreads the word about your business, it has a huge influence over your reputation. Some ideas for building this through marketing include:
- Well-designed email campaigns
- High-quality images on your website and in your marketing materials
- Engaging website copy that reflects your brand
- Having good online reviews across different platforms
All of these marketing tactics, and more, help build your online reputation, establish credibility, and build trust with potential customers.
4. Keeps your audience up to date
The more times you can put your brand name, logo, and core message into people’s heads the better. As long as the marketing is subtle, you can get the customer to a point where they think ‘I need a new shed’ and the next thought is your brand name. You should try:
- Emails showcasing new products or services
- Newsletters with useful information in them
- Social media posts notifying customers of an upcoming sale
- Online business listings that put your name everywhere the customer goes
These tactics will keep your audience up to date on what your company is doing and remind them of your existence. These kinds of tactics don’t always show immediate growth but are a good way of securing business for the future.
5. Grows your business
When you build a company without marketing, it can stagnate or decline if you’re only retaining your current customer base. Marketing can help expand this base though social media posts and email campaigns that target people you don’t already do business with.
Essentially, marketing is the only way to grow your business once word of mouth has run its course.
6. Gives you a sense of direction
Setting out a marketing plan is fundamentally deciding what you want your company to achieve online in terms of gaining new customers and growing your relationship with current customers.
Having a plan like this in place gives you a sense of direction, because you know who you want to target and how, and you have milestones set up to measure your success. Without objectives, it’s unlikely you’ll achieve your goals because you don’t know what they are.
7. Helps you understand your audience
Similar to the above point, if you don’t know your audience you can’t target them. Marketing strategies in the digital age involve a lot of audience and market research based on data.
So, if there’s data showing that 74 percent of people who buy products from a well-known fashion brand are women in their 50s, they can then target that audience specifically. If you want to go into company debt, spending money marketing to the wrong audience is the way to do it.
8. Gives you the best chance against competitors
One thing to keep in your mind when it comes to the success of your business is what your competitors are doing. If you don’t have a marketing strategy, or you’re not putting enough resources into it, chances are one of your competitors will be.
Digital marketing has even created a whole host of tools that analyse the marketing campaigns of your competitors so you can learn their tactics and do one better. Staying out of company debt means beating your competitors, and marketing is the best way to do that.
9. Allows for optimisation of current business tactics
As well as data being a way to gain insights into who your audience should be, they also tell you who your current audience is. Analytics tools used by digital marketers show you who your website is currently receiving visits from and who is making a transaction.
Once you have more insights like these, you can start to develop new strategies and optimise your current ones to make them as effective as possible.
10. Creates revenue options
When you’re just starting out with your business, you tend to be strapped for cash and your options are limited. As your marketing strategies generate more customers, you’ll begin to have more options which will allow you to make money in different ways.
So, is Marketing a Good Way to Avoid Company Debt?
In this post, we’ve shared 10 ways that marketing can help you grow your company and avoid getting into too much debt.
Hopefully we’ve managed to sell the idea of implementing a marketing strategy in your company, and you are on track to having a more successful, debt-free business.
