A marketing plan helps

Passive marketing

I've been running my SME for two years now and I STILL don't have business cards. Seriously - I can print 500 business cards and they can look great in the tray on my desk but surely I could have done more with my R1000 than leave a couple of pieces of paper on my desk?

The most vital aspect for any SME is to get its brand out there and make people aware of its products and services.

Brochures, business cards (and to a lesser extent) websites are passive marketing. You need to find a way to engage customers and get them working with you as quickly as possible. A website can be pro-active but then you are going to need to work on things like search engine optimisation (SEO) and keywords and similar technology skills - your R10 000 budget will be whittled down quickly.

You will probably get a far better response paying a R10 000 salesman to go and knock on doors and place phone calls than you would off a couple of grand on brochures.

This seems to be particularly prevalent for companies entering into an industrial/engineering space. With all due respect - if you have launched ABC Automation and you arrive with your little A5 1 page brochure, you hand it to the client and 10 minutes later your counterpart from a big German enterprise arrives with his latest catalogue in hand on a branded CD - you tell me which piece of marketing material is going to end up in the bin?

The irony of it was that for that same R5000 - R10 000 budget, the client could have had its own catalogue on CD.

Power of PR

For me this is one thing I have never understood - why do so few SMEs invest in SOME kind of PR strategy?!

Industrial SMEs in particular typically have two major characteristics:

• Good technical knowledge
  
• Typically, a small to non-existent sales force to knock on doors

R10 000 isn't going to buy you much in the way of advertising - but it can certainly get you a foot in the door to the same size distribution as a print or online advert, via PR.

Good technical writing and project success stories can get you a stack of coverage in this day and age where publications are devouring content on a daily basis. Ask any online editor how much they crave new content on a daily basis and they will tell you how difficult it is to fill an insatiable demand for new, fresh information.

Industrial type companies need to develop strategy within their limited budgets. Don't just write off a line item saying "Marketing" and expect people to bash down your door. One of your most crucial phases in building your SME is actually marketing it to generate in-bound enquiries.

Plan for a few minutes before committing to a strategy and define WHY you are actually spending the money on the marketing material and HOW the enquiries are going to be generated.