We meet many business owners who say something along the lines of, ‘We don’t do any marketing for our business. Never needed to.’ Respectfully, we disagree. Because any form of external communication is, at heart, marketing – whether it’s in person, on the phone, stationery, via social media, or whatever.

Let’s look at some of the unconscious ways you might be marketing your business, day in, day out:

• Branding – your business has a value proposition, target audience and key messaging that influences how your brand looks and feels; things like your logo, colour palette, font, images, and maybe even a strapline. All of which is marketing.
• Design – letterheads, business cards, flyers, brochures, social media graphics, infographics, newsletters, email campaigns, case studies, price lists…all of these materials require thoughtful design. This, too, is part of marketing.
• Social media – every time you post on your business’s social media accounts, every time you respond to a DM, every ‘like’ you get, every hashtag you use…it’s all marketing.
• Website – no doubt you have a website so your clients can easily find and connect with your business. At some point this website was designed and built, and you (hopefully) update it on a regular basis. This – you guessed it – is marketing.
• Copywriting – whenever you publish articles, write proposals, update your website copy, publish a newsletter, or simply send an email to your clients, these are all forms of copywriting. And copywriting is marketing.
• Research – from establishing your target audience and learning about them, to making new connections and updating your database, research is a vital part of marketing.
• Telesales – every time you pick up the phone to a prospect, a client, someone in your business community, or a supplier, you’re nurturing those all-important relationships. Can you guess what this is? It’s marketing!
• Events and meetings – encompassing the whole spectrum from networking events, business lunches, seminars and training sessions, right down to informal one-to-ones and client meetings, these in-person opportunities are – say it with us now – marketing.

Without knowing it, you’re marketing your business all day every day. So why not make that marketing a little more targeted? Because, with a few considered tweaks, your everyday communications can become powerful marketing tools to generate new interest in what you have to offer.

Here at OCTOPUS, we’ll ensure your communications reach the right people, at the right time, and deliver the results you want. Let’s work together.

(Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash)