Poor small business marketing is one of the major causes of early small business failure. Poor small business marketing not only fails to get new and loyal customers, it also wastes small business marketing resources. Three major reasons account for this waste.
1. Failing to conduct small business marketing research.
2. Not identifying the people most inclined to buy your products or services.
3. Failing to create and follow a small business marketing plan.
Small Business Marketing Mistake 1: Not Utilizing Small Business Marketing Research.
Some small business owners think they can’t afford to research their target market, competition and product development. But if you desire to be successful, you can’t afford not to.
If you don’t have insights from research, you are more likely to build your business and marketing on bad information that decreases your chance of marketing effectively.
Without this research, you will be more inclined to build a marketing program that lacks focus. Research provides the groundwork to build a strategic marketing plan, to assure that every marketing tactic contributes to your marketing and business goals, and to attract your best potential customers.
Every penny that you spend on good research is money well spent. This is particularly true for research to determine your best potential customers, and the best way to market to them. Failing to acquire this information is the second major way that you, as a small business owner, may be wasting marketing resources.
Small Business Marketing Mistake 2: Failing To Target Your Best Potential Customers.
If you don’t want to waste your marketing resources, you need to pick a target market and direct all your marketing to them. Otherwise, you market to everybody and don’t sell much to anybody.
If you think everybody will want to buy your products or services, you are just plain wrong, and you’re wasting marketing resources. If you instead take time to identify the people who really need and want what you sell, your marketing efforts will be far more effective.
Spending a small amount of resources on target market research can save small business owners much more in wasted marketing efforts and expenses than the research costs.
Plus, target market research helps small business owners to:
focus on your best potential customers,
discover the best appeals for this target market, and
design small business marketing campaigns to reach potential customers at least seven times within a year.
By conducting target market research, you’ll discover much about:
those who are your best potential customers,
the best media to reach your target market members,
the best emotional and rational appeals to include in your marketing messages.
how much money they spend and how to price your product.
If you know this information and plan marketing campaigns with it, you’ll improve return on investment and avoid wasting your small business marketing resources.
Small Business Marketing Mistake 3: Not Creating And Following A Small Business Marketing Plan
This third mistake results from the first two. Without the proper research, you can’t have a good marketing plan. And without a good marketing plan, you will more easily fall for sales pitches.
If you think that the only reason to have a marketing plan is because lenders want to see one in your business plan, then you are missing a valuable guide for your business and marketing.
This results in failing to determine the marketing strategies and investments that produce the greatest positive return on investment (marketing ROI). Not planning what small business marketing strategies will best lead to marketing goals, leaves small business owners easily distracted by sales people.
Many sales people play on the small business owner’s lack of marketing planning in order to sell marketing and advertising that do not move the business closer to its goals. A well-developed small business marketing plan is the best defense against sales people who will waste the business owners marketing resources in order to meet their own sales goals.
Some mass media sales people approach new business owners, convincing them to buy advertisements that primarily reach the wrong people, and sometimes reach few people because of the time or placement of the advertisement.
Other sales people often convince small business owners to spend on various marketing products and services that scatter marketing resources to the point that the marketing wouldn’t be effective even if it was targeted to the best potential customers, which usually they’re not.
