For many entrepreneurs, marketing is DIY. Then overnight -- it's not.

Ever notice the confident presence many startups display on the web?  Unlike large organizations, promoting breadth and depth of products and services, today’s entrepreneurs shine on minimalism and visual boldness.

This polished exterior may say “we’re fresh and contemporary” but doesn’t address important marketing basics. All too often when product innovators establish their web presence, many cross marketing off their list. “No time,” “no money,” “no need,” they say.   “We keep everything inside The Family,” often meaning that the founders perform all because the work is anticipated to be relatively simple or the investment not a priority. 

But a peek behind the curtain, by way of research conducted for our service provider network, revealed a set of marketing challenges young businesses at first didn’t know they had but were actually holding them back. For this study, we focused on health science and technology companies with an employee count ranging from 4 to 50 but the findings may apply more broadly.  Interview subjects who had eventually tapped experienced independent marketers, often as a stepping stone to a downstream marketing program, revealed their learnings about the early value of such resources.  They concluded that developing awareness, preference, and leads would take more than sales finesse and a marketing intern.

The hidden benefits of leaving DIY marketing sooner rather than later

What was the “Aha!” that changed their thinking and accelerated their business results? Here’s the question posed and a few stories from the interviews.

How would you describe the most unexpected function played by your external marketing resource that helped you advance your business?
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1. Competitor whisperer. “I’m completely consumed by my vision, so I don’t spend a lot of energy studying other companies.  There’s no one else doing what I specifically do.  Last month, I had an idea for a new service but my marketing advisor spotted reports about another business launching a similar service.  I revised my plan; saved a lot of time and money.”
2. Chief nutritionist. “I thought marketing was something I could do myself. What I hadn’t taken into account was  the thought process and planning that goes into it. Even though I limited myself to one social media channel and a newsletter, I ran out of content really fast and couldn’t keep up. What a relief it was to have an experienced independent regularly care for and feed my marketing channels with relevant content in the right doses.  It reinvigorated me.”
3. Penny pincher. “The biggest laugh I had last year was at a friend’s party in reaction to a marketing consultant that told me ‘I can save you money.’ I dared her. She looked through my marketing activities and costs, and said ‘you’re spending big bucks at these events to network but your most likely customers aren’t there.’ She helped me get more realistic about my target segment and pilot a creative outreach program. She could have had the last laugh – but we both laughed together when the outreach brought in three valuable clients.”
4. Orchestra conductor. “The principals in our company develop relationships with our thought leaders but also enjoy developing creative programs for our field events. At one of the events, I noticed that a small company in our space, whose founders also wore multiple hats, was attracting crowds, something we never came close to doing. I congratulated them and asked how they did it. They told me they had brought in an external project manager months before to synchronize their brand and clinical education efforts toward producing a coherent, professional picture of the company.”
5. Assumption blaster. “I’ve always thought marketing was fluff, too expensive, and inferior to personal selling because it’s so hard to measure.  On a recommendation, I found a resource with the patience to work with a marketingphobe like me. She was not only functionally and industry knowledgeable, but gave me many approaches and price points toward solving specific problems. I liked that she encouraged me to pull the plug on anything that felt premature or just not right.”

Other themes included “weaver,” a person who would integrate and optimize the tactics being pursued already, and “reality checker,” someone unencumbered by peer pressure or the fear of a bad evaluation who told it like it was when it came to outlining the steps that could not be skipped for product launches or campaign development.

How to know when DIY is over?

For these former DIY marketers, a jack-of-all-trades approach all too quickly ran out of steam. What advice would they give up-and-comers for recognizing the winds of change?

“The time to act is rarely recognizable from the inside,” said one new venture leader who is on his third startup. “And it’s particularly hard to take a step while products are in development, although that’s the best time to seek outside perspective that will challenge you before you start making mistakes or missing the train.”

Many say they held back because they couldn’t justify allocating funds for agencies.  “A reason that doesn’t add up,” said a founder who changed his mind after understanding how to find affordable expert help that did not reside in agencies.
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The advice offered most often? A conversation with an outside resource is a safe start because there’s no commitment.  More often than not, outsiders enjoy being tapped as sounding boards and don’t expect a service agreement will always follow. A business relationship will fall into place if the fit is right.