While there are some simple marketing principles, it’s incredibly complex to get a marketing strategy just right. It requires finesse, a strong understanding of your demographic and lots of research. If you’re attempting to create a strong marketing game, it’s important to make sure that you aren’t making these 10 common marketing mistakes.
Top 10 Marketing Mistakes Small Businesses Make
- Not having a website – To put it bluntly, it’s the 21st century. If you don’t have a website, it’s time to get on the web. You can easily build credibility with potential customers and clients by having a web presence. The site can be simple, but you need to have one.
- Not seeking professional help for branding – Even if you know what your brand stands for in a broad sense, you need to work with a company who can help you narrow it down and keep you on brand.
- Not researching your audience – Knowing what your audience wants is vitally important to your marketing efforts. After all, how can you market well if you don’t know who you’re marketing to?
- Hiring your cousin’s uncle’s brother to do your online marketing – Not just anyone can execute a successful SEO and internet marketing campaign. When you bring a company on board to help, make sure you thoroughly research them and read reviews. Otherwise, you could be wasting a lot of time and money on bad practices.
- Marketing yourself on every social site – While it’s important to have a presence, make sure that you’re using the sites that make sense for your business. For example, a home remodeling service probably doesn’t need a Twitter account. On the other hand, they could benefit significantly from a site like Houzz.
- Not taking control of your online reputation – On nearly every site where users are able to leave reviews, companies can also respond to them. Responding to these reviews, whether positive or negative, shows that you genuinely care about what your customer base things. This is invaluable organic marketing.
- You don’t have written goals – In order to know if your marketing efforts are succeeding, you need to have a baseline and clear goals. Regular reporting on these goals will give you an idea of what’s working and what needs to change.
- Not networking – You’ve likely heard this one a thousand times, but networking is fundamentally important to your marketing efforts. Build strong relationships with other people relevant to your industry and things will start to fall into place.
- Relying solely on word of mouth – While networking and word of mouth are important components of marketing, they’re often not enough to bring your company to its full potential.
- Not looking at marketing as an investment – Yes, putting money out up front can get expensive. However, if you market your company successfully, it should come back to you many times over.