The "Do It Yourself" Myth:
There Is a Better Way
You’re a business owner. That in of itself means you like independence. If you really wanted someone telling you what to do you probably wouldn’t have opened your own business. We get it.
Unfortunately, there’s a flipside to being independent and it isn’t a pretty one.
Strapped for cash business owners embark on a bumpy journey choosing to handle sales, marketing and branding all on their own. This is usually done despite the self-realization they have little to no experience in this area. On top of that it’s an area over 85% of business owner admittedly dislike and are uncomfortable doing.
While admirable, the “do it yourself” mentality usually ends up with a business owner spending valuable time, hard earned money and a lot of wasted effort getting a website designed and marketing materials developed. At first it might seem like you saved money because the materials look good.
The problem becomes apparent, however, when the website and marketing materials are put to the test in the real world. The most common problem we’ve seen is that do it yourself websites and marketing materials are completely out of sync with the company’s business model and are not Emotionally Relevant with customer’s true buying behavior.
Marketing & Branding: It’s a Collaborative Effort
Possessing an independent mentality does not mean everything you do as a business owner should be done “your way”. In fact, when it comes to marketing and branding, it is imperative that you don’t go it alone, even if you are skilled in these disciplines.
Within marketing and branding exist so many variables that no single person can see all angles or make sense of all opportunities. In short, marketing and branding is a collaborative endeavor.
Truth is not everything you want to do is affordable so there will be things you’re left doing yourself. What we’re saying is that when it comes to your website and your marketing campaigns you have to be very careful as to how much of the “do it yourself” mentality you involve yourself. Too much independence won’t boost your business, instead it can kill your business.
The Drawback to Do-It-Yourself Templates
When it comes to doing things yourself the pitfalls business owners fall into most often is using website templates, email templates and copywriting templates to boost their brand image and sales.
To be clear, there isn’t anything wrong with using an inexpensive, generic template that you find at a lot of web hosting and email marketing companies. In that scenario you pick a pre-designed layout, choose the color, write your own copy and select your own images. Voila – you’re up and “live” on the web. Sounds like a good deal, right?
On one hand it makes sense as you save some money. Saving money is always good unless, of course, the money you think you’re saving on the front end winds up costing lots of money on the back end.
With all that said, do not overlook the inherent draw back and costly activities to doing something on your own that requires a specialized set of skills and knowledge to produce successful outcomes.
The first and most costly issue at hand is that using templates severely cuts into time away from performing the tasks that you do best within your business. It’s a safe assumption you did not get into business for yourself to spend tireless hours working on marketing templates.
If marketing, sales and branding are not one of your stronger attributes you’re in trouble.
The second area that templates cost you lots of money on the back end is results. If your copywriting and visual images are out of sync with how your customer’s buy and make decisions your efforts to boost sales via templates are Dead On Arrival (DOA).
Of course there’s no guarantee a professional firm can generate results for you either. But if the right firm is chosen you can rest assured your odds of succeeding with email campaigns, direct mail campaigns and your website are a lot higher than if you did everything yourself.
There Is a Better Way
Over the years we’ve seen far too many well intentioned business owners suffer needlessly for believing no other cost effective options existed for them to build, grow and brand their business.
Like our clients, and our team, you’re at our website, reading this, because you believe there is a better way to developing and executing your company’s marketing and branding. After years of fine tuning our process, for a variety of industries and different sized companies, our agency decided to take its “All In One” system to those who needed it most – small business owners.
You don’t have to choose any of the All In One Packages. You can choose from a variety of solutions that fit your current needs at our Options Galore department. What we’re saying is that, no matter how you choose to collaborate with our agency, your project with us will validate your belief that there is a better way. You’ll realize this from the very first call that we strategize with you.
Success Is More Than Just HTML Code
Contrary to what you might have heard or believe achieving your desired outcome with a website takes a lot more than just color choices or HTML code. Because of that you will not find our agency giving you a website without expert one-to-one marketing and brand guidance in key areas of your company’s online and offline brand positioning. Come to think of it, why in the world would you want anything less?
Let us do the job we’re passionate about so you can do the job you’re passionate about.
Seem fair? We thought so too.
Eliminating the headaches of doing your marketing and branding yourself is but one of many things that make SK Graphic Design different.
What’s the next step for you?
Well, you could read the other five critical areas where we’re different or you could contact us right away to discuss your company’s marketing and branding.
Whatever you choose to do with your company’s brand and marketing we look forward to hearing from you.
In the meantime, if you’ve read to this point it’s because you’ve already accepted the only choice that makes logical and financial sense. We’re simply here to honor it.
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