Marketing troubleshooting

A young woman with her head in her hands, and the caption, "Your marketing team might not tell you if they're in over their heads. But you can help if you know.'

How to tell if your marketing team is up to snuff – and what to do if it’s not

As a business owner, it can be tough – especially if you don’t have a marketing background yourself – to get a really good idea of how well your marketing function is, well, functioning. Or how to figure out where it’s going wrong. We see this question come up a fair amount, because we specialize in helping growing companies take the next big leap. And you usually start to experience challenges with your marketing function when you’re trying to grow...

Man writing in a calendar, with the quote, "Marketing, like puppies, can't be set up then just left alone."

Four quarterly marketing checks every small business should make

We just blew through the end of another quarter, which means several things for small businesses, including taxes. Sigh. Let’s talk about marketing checkups. If you’re not already doing so, you really should be checking in on your marketing every quarter, especially if you tend to get it started and then go off and do other things, like run your business. Marketing—like children, puppies, and a lot of other things in life—can’t be just set up then left to sort...

A person working on a computer, with the caption, "Knowing WHEN to launch a marketing campaign is as important as how to launch it."

Quiz: is your business ready for a marketing campaign?

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone is at the right place to get the most out of a marketing campaign. In our experience, most small businesses think that good marketing is essential to their business. But is it always? Gasp! We’re a marketing company, and we’re asking this? (You should know by now that we try to be a different type of marketing company, but enough about us). The reality is that not all businesses, especially very small or very...

A pedestrian wait sign, with the caption, "Waiting is hard. But pulling the plug on a good marketing campaign is worse. Trust us."

How soon is too soon to call time of death on your marketing campaign?

The other day, a client of ours emailed us. He said that since the digital marketing campaign we had set up hadn’t produced any results yet, perhaps we should start brainstorming different approaches. Now, to be clear. in this case, it was way too early to be asking that question, since the ads had been running a couple of days at most. But we liked seeing that he has the right approach to small business marketing—namely that one should always...

A car engine, with the caption, "Good marketing, like a car, works pretty much all the time. If yours has broken down, don't assume that cars aren't for you - run a diagnostic instead."

Marketing not working? Six ways to troubleshoot

If you are a small business and you don’t feel like any of your marketing works… well, let’s just say you’re not alone. I hear this over and over, and often not just from small businesses. I’ve heard the infamous, “marketing doesn’t work for us” line from businesses ranging from one employee to fifty. And the reality is that they aren’t wrong. But they also aren’t right. Don’t worry, I haven’t lost it. The truth is that at the very...