5 Things Your Small Business Should Look At Before You Spend Another Penny on Marketing

THE SME MARKETING HEALTH CHECK - AUGUST 2026

If you run a small business, marketing can sometimes feel like another job in itself.

There’s always something else you could be doing. Posting on social media. Writing a blog. Sending an email. Updating your website. Trying Google Ads. Creating a Reel. Networking. Looking at what your competitors are doing…

And before you know it, you’ve spent hours “doing marketing” without really knowing whether any of it is making a difference.

But here’s the thing: more marketing isn’t necessarily the answer. Better marketing is.

Before you spend another penny—or another hour—on marketing, take five minutes to work through these five questions.

1. Can someone understand what you do in five seconds?

Go to your website homepage and pretend you’ve never seen your business before.

Can you immediately answer:

• What does this business do?

• Who is it for?

• What problem does it solve?

• What should I do next?

If the answer isn't obvious, you have a problem.

Businesses often get so close to what they do that they forget their customers don't have the same knowledge.

You might know exactly what your business does, but your potential customer doesn't want to work it out.

Your marketing should make things easier, not make people think harder.

Try this:

Ask someone who doesn't know your business to look at your homepage for five seconds.

Then ask them what they think you do.

Their answer might be surprisingly useful.

2. Are you talking about your customer—or yourself?

One of the easiest marketing traps to fall into is making everything about you.

“We've been established for 20 years.”

“We offer a comprehensive range of services.”

“We pride ourselves on excellent customer service.”

“We are passionate about what we do.”

All of these things might be true. But your customer is probably thinking:

“What's in it for me?”

Good marketing connects what you do with the problem your customer is trying to solve.

Instead of simply saying:

Try thinking about the reason someone actually needs you:

The first tells me what you do.

The second tells me why I should care.

Try this:

Take your main product or service and finish this sentence:

“My customer comes to me because they want to…”

That answer should feature much more heavily in your marketing.

3. Is your website helping you—or letting you down?

Your website doesn't need to win design awards.

It does need to do its job.

For most small businesses, that means helping someone move from:

“I've never heard of you”

to

“I think you could help me.”

Take a look at your website and check:

• Is it up to date?

• Are your services easy to find?

• Is your contact information obvious?

• Does it clearly explain who you help?

• Are there real examples, testimonials or case studies?

• Is there a clear next step?

And perhaps most importantly:

Does it still reflect the business you run today?

Businesses evolve. Services change. Customers change. But websites often get forgotten.

Try this:

Look at your website on your phone.

Not your laptop.

Your customers are likely to do exactly the same.

If you find yourself pinching, scrolling endlessly or struggling to find basic information, your customers probably are too.

4. Are you measuring what actually works?

This is one of the biggest differences between doing marketing and having a marketing strategy.

It's very easy to measure likes, followers and views.

But those numbers don't necessarily pay the bills.

I'd rather know:

• How many enquiries did we receive?

• Where did they come from?

• How many turned into customers?

• Which service generated the most interest?

• Which marketing activity actually led to a sale?

You don't need complicated analytics dashboards to start doing this.

Sometimes simply asking:

“How did you hear about us?”

can tell you a lot.

Try this:

For the next month, keep a simple record of every enquiry and where it came from.

At the end of the month, look for patterns.

You might discover that the marketing activity you thought was working brilliantly isn't actually generating much business—and something you barely considered is bringing in your best customers.

That's incredibly useful information.

5. Are you trying to do too much?

This is probably the biggest one.

Small businesses often feel like they need to be everywhere.

Facebook. Instagram. LinkedIn. TikTok. Email. Blogs. Google. Networking. Events…

But marketing isn't about ticking every box.

It's about being visible in the right places to the right people.

If your customers aren't on TikTok, you don't need to spend your Tuesday evening making TikToks.

If LinkedIn is where your ideal clients spend their time, that's probably where your energy should go.

And if your customers mostly come through recommendations, perhaps your marketing efforts should include a proper referral strategy rather than another social media account.

Try this:

Write down every marketing activity you currently do.

Now put each one into one of three categories:

KEEP – It's working.

IMPROVE – It could work better.

STOP – You're doing it because you feel you should, rather than because it's delivering anything useful.

You might be surprised by what ends up in the third column.

The biggest marketing lesson?

You don't necessarily need to do more.

You might just need to do less, but do it better.

Before starting another social media account, spending money on advertising or creating another piece of content, take a step back and ask:

What am I trying to achieve, who am I trying to reach, and how will I know if it's working?

Those three questions can save you a lot of wasted time and money.

And remember, marketing isn't something you have to get perfect.

Small, consistent improvements can make a much bigger difference than constantly starting something new.

Your 5-minute small business marketing challenge

Before you finish reading this newsletter, choose one thing from this list and do it:

☐ Look at your website homepage through your customer's eyes.

☐ Rewrite one piece of marketing to focus more on the customer's problem.

☐ Check where your last five enquiries came from.

☐ Delete one marketing activity that isn't serving you.

☐ Ask a customer why they chose your business.

You don't need to overhaul your entire marketing strategy today.

Just make one thing better.

And then do the same next month.

If you found this useful, feel free to forward it to another small business owner who might find it helpful too.

JB Marketing & Communications — practical marketing support for businesses that want their marketing to actually work.

www.jbmarketing-uk.com

stacey@jbmarketing-uk.com