April/May 2008
Extra
Study: Businesses Question Marketing Efforts
In many ways marketing and sales are the yin and the yang. Marketing helps sales and sales fuels marketing. However, the near majority of executives from small businesses (64%) feel they lack full confidence in their marketing decisions, according to a recent survey conducted by the Hewlett-Packard Company. Sixty percent of those surveyed said they could be doing a better job as marketers, and almost half (46%) claim they don’t have any general marketing expertise.
These findings highlight a golden opportunity for ad specialty distributors, says Anne Carroll, president of Logotex Manufacturing (asi/255306). “If people knew those numbers, they might be talking to their clients about their different capabilities, rather than just saying, ‘I can get you stuff,’” she says. “That’s what goes on in the industry all the time – people think we’re just purveyors of stuff, and they call around for pricing.”
The survey results also pointed out that only 18% of small-business owners felt confident in effectively creating their own marketing collateral. “These findings revealed the obstacles and challenges many small businesses in the U.S. face, and stressed their concerns that limitations in budget, marketing knowledge and resources would hinder their development of effective marketing materials,” says Larry Trevarthen, director of Worldwide SMB Marketing for the HP LaserJet Business Unit. The survey polled 500 business owners over the phone. It was conducted by International Communications Research.
Offering additional marketing services to clients “is part of what we do. We’re full service. We want to offer them the products that will raise awareness of their business [among clients’ prospects],” says Lynn Stillman, president of Better Signs & Banners (asi/138750). “Businesses need to take advantage of every opportunity to market themselves.”
Practice makes perfect, says Stillman. “We recommend doing a lot of the same things we do to promote our business. We give away promotional products by the bundle. We’re never hesitant to give something away to promote our company.”
Only 33% of those polled had created marketing collateral, and a mere 27% had bothered to design a company logo. With that data, the door is open for ad specialty distributors to let end-users know that they offer the marketing expertise they business owners crave. “If you don’t grab the bull by the horns and take control of the conversation and ask, ‘Why are you ordering what you are ordering?’ then they will never see you in a different light.”
KEN HEIN is a contributing writer based in Basking Ridge, NJ.
