But Marketing does cost money, and time, and if you’re not a marketer, it will end up costing you more than just time and money. It will cost you customers.
As a small business, you’re not sure how to go about it. You probably have been relying on some basics, heavily on referrals, and a few ads or social tactics to start. But a the natural bump in new business referrals diminishes, you get the nagging sense you need to do something else. The longer you wait, the more terrifying it becomes.
Marketing isn’t cheap.
Do you know the starting salaries marketers withe with 5 years or more experience, within the Philadelphia area?
- Chief Marketing Officer: $245,000
- VP of Marketing: $232,000
- Marketing Director: $148,500
- Copywriter: $109,750
- Content Strategist: $109,000
- Web Content Writer: $98,000
- Content Marketing Manager: $94,500
- Social Media Manager: $93,500
- Graphic Designer: $93,000
salaries adjusted, per the guide, for the Philadelphia area
Secret Sauce, 2016 Salary Guide, by The Creative Group
And these are just the base salaries, the numbers do not include the payroll taxes, benefits, and more.
Chances are, to perform all the functions of marketing, you need most of these, in any given month. Even excluding the top two, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Vice President, you’re still likely to get sticker shock. And remember, this is the STARTING salary for those with 5 years experience. If you’re a small business, you don’t have the luxury of spending that kind of money on marketing, and yet you know you need it.
Marketing Is Critical to Success
Depending on the size of your business, you may not need full time marketing support, but you still need a variety of skillsets. So what are your options? You may know that “Diamond in the Rough” or relative who can help out, but are you willing to trust your entire business, passion, hard work, and life dream to someone who isn’t an expert?
You could decide on talking to an agency, but you’ll quickly find out that agencies don’t understand very small and small businesses. So many of them say they do, I know, I used to work in agencies. I have to correct that, many of the folks in agencies DO understand small businesses, but don’t understand how to serve them in a cost efficient manner. They’ll sound like they understand your needs, and they do, but then you’ll get a proposal with a budget that makes you choke.
In all these years I watched as clients so desperately in need of marketing support unable to find it, and have been pitched by agencies who are disgusted at the shock shown at their huge project budgets. The few times I was able to find affordable agencies for even a larger smaller business, the caliber of work they provided was beyond subpar*.
So what do you do? Hire a bunch of freelancers? You’ll still need to manage them and already know what you need to do and get done, so you don’t have the lead marketing expertise that you need in the first place.
OR … you can work with Charter Marketing.
I’ve been a marketer for over 25 years, and have all the skills and experience of the ENTIRE list above, and more, working in multiple industries on the B2B and B2C side, on the client and the agency side. [Learn more about me] I’m tired of seeing small businesses, those started with a passion and a purpose, struggle because they can’t access quality marketing support. These small businesses drive our success, making up more than 90% of our country’s business economy.
Charter Marketing: Agency expertise and talent,
without the agency pricing!
So what are you waiting for? Contact me to start your marketing journey.