It’s a quandary thing that so many businesses struggle with, both when they’re first starting out and as they continue to grow in size and need to scale their endeavours: Do you get your marketing taken care of through an external provider or do you keep it in house?

No matter which way you do it, each has its own pros and cons, and depending on the size of your business and how much marketing you want and need to do, you’ll see various benefits to each. For a small business with not a lot of spend available for marketing – at least in the early stages – it really does make financial sense to take care of marketing in house. Another benefit to having marketing in house in the early stages is that you’re probably working with a pretty small team, and so the best knowledge of your products and how to marketing them will come from your staff – and yourself.  Once you’ve grown and your presence needs to be stronger, its worthwhile investing resources in a specialist-marketing agency that can help you get to the next level.

To help you get started with your marketing endeavours, we’ve created a list of the top ten tips you need to follow to ensure that your in-house marketing is as effective as possible.

Step One: Make sure that you have a rock-solid marketing plan in place. If you have this, you’ll have the roadmap for your future events, activities and social media activity. If you don’t have a plan and follow the oft-employed ‘scatter gun’ approach to marketing (particularly seen in social media) you might not see as much success as you has hoped. A great place to start is by creating a marketing calendar which outlines any major events for your business in the year, and then drill down from there, incorporating promotions or other significant happenings.

Step Two: Make sure you know what is it that you do, and what you stand for. This also roughly translates into your company’s message or ethos, and it comes from identifying what it is that your products or services provide to your customers. Once you know this, you need to make it part of all that you do, to ensure a consistent message.

Step Three: Create a content calendar. This one requires a bit of know-how and some planning, but as with the marketing plan, once you have it you’ll use it as your guide for the months and year ahead. Your content calendar covers everything you put out there, from blogs to Facebook posts, to Tweets and even newsletters. Work out who is going to write what and map it out on a schedule.

Step Four: Divide the labour. If you’re working with a small team and need to create a couple of blogs a month and post to Facebook and other social media channels, you might find that it’s too much for one person. Figure out who is taking care of what, and ensure that everyone knows their roles.

Step Five: Use your community. Think locally and draw on your existing customer and fan base. Develop ways to get your message front and centre for your target audience in a clever way.

Step Six: Network. If you know of events and goings-on that are relevant to your industry then you need to be showing your face at as many as you need to to get business going! Take plenty of business cards and make sure you have your elevator putch ready!

Step Seven: Create some buzz and promote your products online – either through Facebook or your business blog. If you have a new product coming up – then get out there and push it!
Step Eight: Leverage your reviews. Monitor your review channels and make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward when it comes to responding to reviews and feedback. Turn a negative into a positive by responding with care and genuine warmth.

Step Nine: Educate your customers with free eBooks or guides. This keeps people informed about your products and helps them to stay current with what you’re up to.

Step Ten: Don’t be afraid to give your products away. If people see that you’re open to sampling your product, knowledge or experience then they will be more open to developing a relationship with your services.