Your marketing effort is the sum total of the sales, pricing, promotional and advertising efforts implemented to promote the flow of goods or services from your business to the consumer. Marketing includes having the right merchandise or service, selecting the right location, enacting effective sales programs and promoting your company and its wares to the buying public. It's easy for the small business owner to find excuses for neglecting marketing. Most small businesses operate on a no-frills budget and many owners consider marketing something they can't afford or a soft expense. Marketing I can cut.
True marketing is an expense that can be reduced or cut.
The question that then arises is how without marketing do you propose to gain those much needed customers that mean sales. It's clich to say you have to spend money to make money, but it is absolutely true. If you do not effectively market your company, brand, image and products or services, you won't be in business for long. Marketing is an investment in future sales. As an entrepreneur, you must always be looking into the future and to the next sale.