Do you really need to market your business?

I often speak to small business owners who say "we don't need to market our business".

You'd probably assume that my answer would be 'yes you do' - but it isn't.

In fact, my answer to that question is always the same: you already are! Many businesses take a very narrow view as to what constitutes marketing - in most cases they actually mean advertising instead (and many great businesses don't need to advertise). But even taking the traditional 4 P's approach you can see that marketing is much more than what it says in your newspaper ad or what keywords you use in Google.

So what does constitute marketing? In my opinion, marketing is made up of everything that your customers or potential customers (or anyone else for that matter) could come in contact with. Using such a broad definition leads you to question how to get the most from every aspect of your business and start challenging some assumptions.

How does the look of my office affect the number of recommendations I get?
Do my invoices encourage repeat business?
What do my staff say about my business - or not say?

Start looking at marketing in this way and virtually everything becomes an opportunity to increase your appeal and make sure you're putting across the right message.