Marketing increasing for small businesses

Since the recession, many businesses have to look for more efficient ways to market their small companies. Most have resorted to marketing through social media outlets, which has proven to be helpful with small business advertising, but more companies are now pouring an increased amount of money into their marketing efforts.

According to Business Examiner, companies spending more money in their marketing efforts is a sign that the recession might finally be coming to an end. Companies were forced to go through budget cutbacks and business closings in order to stay afloat during the last few years, hurting their promotions and other areas of their business.

“At the end of last year, we started to see people investing in marketing again,” said Mike Williams, CEO of The Williams Group, a full-service marketing firm. “For a period of time, if people were doing anything, it was just one-time shots like reworking their website because there were no other dollars available.”

Williams added that during 2008 through 2010, there was definitely a reduction in spending, and for clients, it was possible for people to control cutting the budget. He said that he's even starting to see people looking at a full marketing plan and investing in annual campaigns, which businesses couldn't get people to think about during the recession.

“I think that our clientele are more savvy than many, and these methods tend to have lower entry-level costs - the out-of-pocket tends to be less,” said Dale Richart, an agent for GCI, a marketing and promotions firm that has had headquarters in Olympia for more than 35 years. “They know that small and local pays off, so they don’t expect that their phones will be ringing off the hook. They want to build client awareness - something that won’t result in money down the rat hole.”

Business 2 Community recommends diving into mobile marketing for small businesses by creating personalized content, respecting people's time and making mobile inquiries a priority. Communicating with possible customers on their mobile devices will give a company more exposure as a result of consumers paying more attention to their phones than they have in the past.

The source also recommends measuring and adjusting to the market, not ignoring social media and delivering important data in real time.