When do you go to the doctor? Aside from your normal checkup, are you the type of person that will call the doctor at the slightest sniffle, or are you quick to jump online and self-diagnose? The Internet has made it so easy to find information, more and more people are turning to the Web to figure out what's wrong instead of making an important trip to the doctor's office, and the same is happening with marketing.

What does marketing have to do with going to the doctor's, you ask? Well, think of it this way. Many small business owners have websites and marketing materials that aren't performing to their full potential. Either a mailing isn't targeted to the right audience in its copywriting, or a website isn't well optimized for search engines; perhaps an email marketing campaign is accidentally getting filtered into people's spam folders. Metaphorically speaking, the marketing campaign is sick and needs to be made well.

Instead of turning to a marketing company or design firm to help diagnose and treat the problem, many small businesses attempt to self-diagnose based on limited research and resources for the sake of saving money. Just as turning to online medical articles can put someone's life in danger if they are actually seriously ill and neglect to go to a specialist, attempting to patch up holes in your marketing program when you don't have marketing expertise can cause your business to suffer the same fate. In actuality, self-diagnosing in your business can actually can make matters worse and cost you much more money in the long run due to continued ineffective marketing programs that avoid opportunities with highly qualified customers.

Using a professional firm, like going to a doctor, puts the health of your business and brand strategy in the hands of qualified professionals who know how to get your business back on track. Rather than worrying that you may not be doing the right thing, or feeling overwhelmed by tasks that you're not comfortable performing on your own, turning over the responsibility to trusted professionals will alleviate your stress and, most importantly, give you a healthy marketing program that reaches the right people, makes the best use of your money, and provides the highest return on your investment.

Thankfully, unlike going to the doctor's office, a great marketing program always includes insurance: in the form of assurance that your marketing program will be performing to its full potential well into the future with routine 'checkups' and a preventative approach. How does your business prevent the ill effects of ineffective marketing? And what do you do when your campaign is under the weather?