Most entrepreneurs are experts in their particular area of genius but not experts in marketing. Yet, it is the marketing that can make or break your company’s bottom line.

Marketing your company doesn’t have to be hard or expensive. With a little creativity, you can generate interest that leads to more customers, more money, and a greater return on your investment.

There is one marketing blunder, however, that all business owners make at some point.  Business owners take a look at all of the marketing that needs to be implemented and forget that each marketing initiative, whether it is a direct mail piece, social media marketing, or a promotional item must be integrated into other business processes or systems to get the biggest bang from their buck.

For example, many companies are encouraged to start a blog. When they do, they quickly realize that the blog does nothing but create a lot of work for someone. It’s often because they haven’t determined if the blog will be used as a customer relationship builder, lead generator, a revenue generator, or all of the above.

Further, as your business grows, your marketing attracts prospective employees who want to work for you. If you have a fantastic marketing strategy and brand but forget to give the same experience to your new employees through your interviewing and onboarding processes, that can lead to a disastrous mismatch and turnover issues.

Small businesses are in a great position to leverage their marketing, but get fixated on hurry-up-and-implement tactics without considering how that one initiative affects the whole company.

One event planner learned the hard way how important it is to think through your marketing plans. When she mailed a direct mail marketing post card out to prospective clients, she forgot to marry her offline and online marketing by including a way for customers to download a free eBook she created for them. She missed the boat on adding value to the customer through her eBook and also getting their name and email in return.  A few days later, her call center was surprised to have a volume of unexpected phone traffic because they weren’t aware that a post card was mailed out, leaving the customer feeling a less-than warm welcome.

So, the next time you want to implement a marketing idea, think through your process:

• Map out the ways to marry your offline and online strategies, maximizing your direct mail and online presence
• Make it easy for the customer to contact you by phone or email
• Anticipate and communicate the impact of your initiatives on your internal operations

When you think through how to integrate all of your marketing initiatives, you’ll see brand new opportunities previously missed and a maximum return on your marketing investments.