My 'invest in marketing' SWOT

Marketing is an extremely powerful tool for any business and therefore should be seen as an investment, rather than a cost. 

The fact is when marketing is executed well, it can provide long-term value for businesses - whether that be through building a strong brand presence or encouraging customer loyalty. On the flip side by not investing you run the risk of missing opportunities and essentially throwing money down the drain.

The key strengths

How does marketing benefit a business:

• Driving brand growth - through a strong strategy and effective campaigns, marketing will successfully build brand awareness and recognition - helping businesses to ensure they’re visible and memorable.
• Fostering customer loyalty - marketing helps to foster loyalty amongst customers by creating emotional connections and positive experiences. As well as incentivisation such as personalisation, loyalty programmes etc.
• Giving them a competitive advantage - marketing will help to differentiate your business’ offering and ultimately convince prospective customers to choose you over your competitors.
• Generating profit - because of people knowing your brand, choosing you over your competitors and wanting to come back again and again, you’ll see that your marketing efforts will be able to successfully generate profit.

The weaknesses

How can marketing impact a business:

• Increased costs - it’s no big shock that in order to invest in marketing you need to be willing to pay the costs. Whether that’s employee salaries, agency fees or even media spend, you need to pay the price to see the reward. 
• Time involved - nothing good happens overnight and certainly without dedicating time into crafting and executing marketing strategies that are going to see results.
• Lack of skill - for some businesses, particularly those that are smaller, there may be a skill gap that stands in the way of investing in marketing. Once again, in order to fill that gap, there will be a cost involved. 

The main opportunities

What opportunities can marketing offer businesses:

• Attracting talent - through driving brand awareness and recognition, businesses will also be able to highlight company culture and values, attracting new talent to come and work in your team.
• Attracting new customers - through marketing efforts businesses will not only be more visible to prospective customers but will be able to demonstrate value and trust - encouraging them to take action.

The core threats

What are the risks for businesses not investing in marketing:

• Fall behind competitors - if your business isn’t investing in marketing the chances are your competitors are. This means whilst you save on cost and time, your competitors are convincing your prospective customers why they should choose them.
• Reduced reach - without marketing businesses will be massively reducing their reach, meaning that there will be a bunch of potential customers that they’re missing out on.