One of the great things about working in the the SEO industry you get to meet a lot of new business owners and operators. And you get to guess pretty quickly which businesses are going to succeed and which will eventually fail.
The key question we ask to determine this is “how much money have you allocated to marketing in your first year”.
The successful ones answer with a dollar amount, or a fixed percentage of expected turnover.
Examples:
We have allocated $20,000 to marketing and advertising both offline and online in our first year
or
We have allocated 20% of our expected first year turnover to advertising and marketing
For most new businesses 20% of target first year turnover is a reasonable figure.
I find it very strange. There are so many new business owners who are happy to give up their paid employment, borrow and spend money on premises, vehicles, staff, tools, computers, software, stock, permits, insurance, licences and other business infrastructure, then with what little cash they have left over they allocate to marketing. I call this the “field of dreams” approach to marketing.
The wonderful thing about the internet and SEO is you can flip the standard business model on it’s head. For less than $5000 or a few weeks of your time, you can create a presence and brand online and once the phone starts to ring and email starts to ping, THEN you can go ahead and spend on all the other business infrastructure. And you can do this while you still have a full-time job.
Market it and they may come. Create the demand, build the infrastructure, lower the risk.
