There Are 3 Main Marketing Obstacles That Cigar Shop Owners Face When It Comes to Effectively Marketing Online
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Amount of Time Required
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Budget Constraints
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Lack of Understanding
Taking a Closer Look Reveals Why They Are Each Valid Concerns:
1. Amount of Time Required
There are only so many hours in a day. And as a business owner, it seems that everyone wants a piece of it! Running your own business requires you to wear many hats and each of these hats requires a portion of your time:
- Making sure the shop is in good shape
- Checking Inventory levels
- Placing orders
- Engaging with Customers
- Entertaining Sales Reps
- Planning Events / Promos
- Attending Local or National Events / Shows
- Paying Bills
- Hiring / Training Employees
- Staying Current with Trends
- Keeping Books for Accountant
- Family Time
- You Have to Eat
- Answering the Phone
- Responding to Emails
- The Daily Unforeseen Distractions That Eat Up Your Time
- You Probably have a Few More That You can Add to this List
The point is: Your time is extremely valuable. Use it Wisely!
2. Budget Constraints
Everything listed above comes at a price. Not only do each of the items above eat up your time, but most are also somehow tied in with finances. One thing is for certain and this goes for Any Business – You have to bring in more than you are paying out to survive!
We’ve all also heard the saying “You have to spend money to make money.” This is true – but you have to spend it in the right places as well! Chances are, just spending money for the sake of spending it is not going to deliver the desired results on a long term basis.
So how do you know where your marketing dollars are best spent? For every industry, the answer is different. However, a common theme is that everyone wants the best value they can possibly get. You want the most for your money. And in today’s market, nearly every time this is achieved with online marketing.
So why is everyone not allocating 100% of their marketing dollars online? There’s 2 reasons:
- Some traditional channels do still make sense and if they are providing value, then you want to keep these going
- See Marketing Obstacle #3 below
The point is: Money is only an issue in the absence of value.
3. Lack of Understanding
By no means does this have anything to do with lacking the intelligence to understand online marketing. It simply refers to the Overwhelming abundance of information that you have to sift through to find out what works best. This quickly depletes your 2 most important assets listed above: Time and Money.
But you know that it’s important to be found online! Which way do you turn? It seems like everyone has a brother’s cousin or a dog’s mailman that can build you a website, took a 1 hour online SEO class, is an “internet marketer”, and the list goes on and on. And that’s not to mention the other companies that we used in the past for print and other forms of advertising that now claim to have the answers. Or the companies that try to offer one size fits all SEO as an addon to their Hosting Services.
Fact of the matter is, Google changes it’s algorithm somewhere between 500-600 times each year!! And though the most popular search engine, this is just one place where customers go in their search for local cigar shops.
And it’s not just confusing, but Very Expensive to hire companies to cover all the places you need to be found!!
The point is: You have a business to run. It would be nearly impossible to try to keep up with the constant online changes while trying to run your business. And in most cases, it doesn’t make sense to have a full time internet marketer on staff. So what’s the solution? Cigar Shop Marketing Solution
