Should IT Marketing Be Delayed if Expecting, Buying a Home, or Hiring?

A few months ago, I spoke with the owner of a small computer consulting business that very badly needs some IT marketing help to reach his firm’s lead generation and client generation goals for the year.

While this prospect is a really good fit for SP Home Run’s Fully Managed Inbound Marketing Services, he wanted to delay getting started for a few months because he was expecting his first child, buying a new home, and planning to hire a new employee.

Personal Cash Needs Compete with Marketing Budget

In a company with only a handful of employees, oftentimes budget for even relatively inexpensive IT marketing investments is in direct competition with the owner’s personal cash needs.

As a three time home buyer and father of two young children, I've been exactly where this prospect is, almost to a “t.”

Family obligations compete for capital, sometimes even draining away funds from critical marketing investments. Each time with 20/20 hindsight, cutting marketing for my company was the wrong move.

Home ownership and raising a family comes with a lot of expected and unexpected expenses.

Keep Your Business in Growth Mode, Rather than Stagnation

But to support it all, you need a business in strong, healthy growth mode so there's money to draw to cover personal obligations. A robust website lead generation campaign consistently gets your company and its thought leadership content in front of the right decision makers, in the right places, and at the right time. Without this, your company's invisible in all of those searches that happen in the first 57% of the B2B sales process – when there’s time to plant your flag early and avoid price competition.

This prospect mentioned, when we spoke a few weeks earlier, that he has a lot of concerns that his referrals aren't predictable or scalable enough to meet his goals for the year -- and that website lead generation is a need, not a want.

Build Healthy Lead Flow to Protect the Company and the Staff

When it comes to hiring an employee, sales staff needs leads. And technical hires, such as system engineers and NOC managers, need billable work and recurring revenue -- which also begins with healthy lead flow.

Since the prospect already conceded that he can’t afford to “bet” the year on referrals, there is a massive disconnect between the articulated pain and the way that this pain is being treated.

This prospect definitely will not meet his company’s growth targets and revenue goals without a more proactive IT marketing strategy.

If this prospect is going to be a good fit for SP Home Run, this prospect somehow needs to find budget and time for website traffic generation and lead generation.

Appreciating that the prospect is under both severe budgetary and time constraints, I reminded the prospect that his personal time commitment would be very light: an hour once a month for our review meeting, plus 10 to 15 minutes here and there (for reviewing proposed content topics, answering some quick Q&A, and recording voice-overs for example) -- a lot of which can often be delegated to a trusted employee.

Go With a Phased Approach

My recommendation:

Start building the foundation now, so the computer consulting business is in a position to scale up more rapidly after the owner’s child is born and the family has moved into their new home.

Then the owner will be able to use early metrics and successes in the first few months to more easily justify the commitment level that’s going to be needed to generate enough qualified leads each month to reach the ultimate goals for the year.

Have you ever procrastinated getting started on a much-needed IT marketing campaign because you needed the cash for personal reasons – such as expecting a child or buying a home? And if so, in the end were you happy that you delayed this investment or did you have regrets about delaying? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments section below.

And to get your IT marketing plans off on the right foot, be sure to download your free IT Channel Inbound Marketing Planning Guide.