OK OK, it’s November and no doubt you’ve already seen a tonne of amazing deals that are going to change your life (apparently) from morning to night across digital channels. Those blasted algorithms! So many promises, but who to actually listen to? Who to trust?
So, anyway, you got this far.
The problem
There are estimated to be 5.6 million UK private sector businesses.
For clarity, research from Merchant Savvy reveals 99.9% of all UK businesses are classed as small to medium-sized enterprises, employing between 1 and 249 employees. And segment in size like this:
- 0.6% are medium-sized businesses (50 – 259 employees)
- Less than 4% are small businesses (10 – 49 employees)
- 96% are micro businesses (0 – 9 employees)
1.4 million (26%) businesses have employees and 4.1 million (74%) do not employ anyone aside from the owners. These one owner businesses are micro-size, so I call them ‘solo micro businesses‘. Yes, many of these going solo will be professional service contractors and freelancers, but it’s still a staggering number and one that shocked me professionally. My experience has been in the small to enterprise sectors, so I didn’t need to look further down the trough! When I looked, I couldn’t unsee what I’d seen!
All UK businesses are having a rough time as margins get tighter. Solo micros’ are having a terrible time.
They are the highest-ranking individual in their company and as I said earlier, are the only member! They oversee all aspects of the running of the company process in terms of:
- Legal Compliance
- Financial Management
- Strategic Planning
- Customer and Supplier Relationships
- Operations and Administration
- Marketing and Sales
- Risk Management
- Business Development
Are you seeing the problem? Yes, not only have directors or owners got that lot on their plate, but they have to work on the clock to get the money earn’t to feed the family too. Its surely too much.
Affordability
- 1 in 5 micro businesses across the UK operate on a turnover less than £50,000
- Just over 235,000 micro businesses have a turnover of more than £1 million
- The average turnover of UK micro businesses stands at £286,879
But then lets look at solo micro businesses that are like everyone else, experiencing challenges with political and economic uncertainty and business rate increases and are lucky to have anymore that 9k profit a year.
The solution
Early on when forming a business plan for our company design pitch, we wanted to make sure we were going to hit the right mark with making sure our services was:
- a) Needed
- b) Affordable
So, we went away to a dark dark room, scratched our heads and had a good think.
We wanted to offer a marketing award for solo micro business owners, with the intention of being an affordable stepping stone for access to professional service, that couldn’t be matched elsewhere.
Of course, we didn’t just rely on our own experience and intuition. We asked the audience. Solo business owners wear all the hats and as margins are tight, we found that affordability of outsourcing any help is the main issue. Through our surveys we found that directors or owners rarely have a business plan, let alone a marketing plan.
Infra
So from what we learnt, we set about offering the local business community the value of an honest low cost marketing kickstart to gain a foothold on digital marketing best practise and start to enable meaningful momentum.
So in our master plan, it was all about giving business owners:
- Professional level SEO for their website for free future leads
- Assurance data tracking is configured correctly
- Optmisation expert recommendation for social profiles
- Local search tweaks, to supercharge how customers find you
So today we are delighted to launch the Infra Marketing Award to solo business owners. Yes, it’s only £75. It’s a deal, a steal! Ha. Well, we like it.
As in all good deals, there is a limited amount available for the award before we run out. So, do not delay, contact the team today to apply.
