5 things you may be doing wrong in your marketing…
And 5 things you can do right now to thrive.
Big Opposable Thumb is a small business. If there’s one thing that I am keenly aware of is just how many ways my attention is pulled throughout the day. The last thing I have time for on my list of things to do is also the first thing—market my company.
Small businesses fail for many reasons, and the number one reason for failure is poor cashflow (50 percent). However, a staggering 22 percent fail due to lack of a sound marketing strategy, and 14% fail because they have poor marketing. Many businesses attempt to market themselves as best they can. While I have always believed some marketing is better than no marketing, and that advertising and messaging is a learned science and a discipline that people aren’t natively adept at performing well.
Over my decades of experience in this field, it’s fair to say that I’ve worked with a range of businesses and could go on and on about the things I’ve seen people do well, and where they’ve fallen short. As a small business, I know your resources are short. Inflation has driven up the cost of goods. Minimum wage legislation has increased the price of labor. Your budget is stretched very thin—but you still need to promote your business.
In that spirit, here is a list of five things you may be doing that aren’t helping your business and a list of five things you could start doing right now. Affordable things that won’t tax your budget and help maximize what you can do with limited funds.
5 common errors in marketing
You say too much—People have short attention spans and, on average, are bombarded with over 5,000 messages every day. If your ad has too much going on, intuitively a potential customer will skip right over your ad in favor of something else. Be simple. Focus on one item. Build a strong call to action. That’s it.
Rely on word of mouth—The clarion call of businesses who don’t market. Word of mouth is great, but it’s passive and inconsistent. The first flaw is that you are no longer in control of the messaging. You don’t know what your referral is saying about you or how much weight their recommendation carries. That referral isn’t on the phone every day advocating for your company and pushing its value proposition, so it’s therefore unreliable as a marketing tactic.
You make your marketing about you—When you advertise, you talk too much about yourself; why you are in business; why you’re better than company B; why you love what you’re doing. Customers want to know how your business benefits them and which of their problems it solves. If you’re talking about you, you’re not talking about them. That’s a missed opportunity.
You feature a picture of your kid or your dog—Stop it. Just stop it. No one cares about either and it does nothing to advance the benefits of your product or service. It doesn’t make you more approachable. It eats up valuable space you could use to enhance the benefits of your company.
You don’t have a marketing budget—This is a big one, folks. Marketing costs money and you need to set aside enough to do it correctly. Here’s your budget: Take 8–12 percent of your gross revenue and set it aside as your budget for the next year. You take that number and then speak to a marketing professional [insert shameless plug for Big Opposable Thumb here] and work with him to define a marketing strategy that works within the parameters of your budget, identifies your customer, creates messaging meant to appeal to your clients, and targets them where they live and where they like to spend their free time.
Five things you can do right now to thrive
Commit to marketing regularly—Of course this was going to be the number one item on the list. You market. You market with consistent, benefit-laden content designed to appeal to your audience. You market non-stop. Do that and you’ll see an increase in traffic.
Identify your trends–As a small business owner, pay attention to the ebbs and flows or your business. Which days of the week are you busiest? Which months are slow? Who buys more of what, and when? Trends are incredibly important to any marketing strategy so that you can place an advertisement just at the time they’re thinking about buying. This seems obvious, but it’s something marketers will ask you and if you don’t know, that impacts how and when you market.
Build a customer database—Remember when I said you’re doing Word of Mouth wrong? This is how you address that. Capture your customer information and communicate with them. All. The. Time. Give them exclusive discounts. Thank them for being a loyal customer. Provide early access to special events. Use email (because it’s low cost and highly effective), or incorporate other tactics like social media, direct mail … anything that creates you + them communication opportunities. It’ll pay off.
Define a marketing budget—It’s hard to map out an effective marketing strategy if you don’t know what resources are available. Money is tight, but this is a ‘must have’ line item in your business plan. Carve out those funds now. If you can work a year ahead with the budget, that’s optimal. However, if you understand your trends as a business, you can predict how much money is available each month to devote to the promotion of your business.
Find a marketing professional you love—This is an overlooked but incredibly crucial factor in your marketing efforts. Find someone you jive with; someone you can trust; someone you can joke around with and create an atmosphere of candor and mutual benefit. That professional needs to “get” you, understand your needs, and work with you to develop your campaign.
There are many variables that contribute to the success or failure of a business. Marketing is an important one, and the items above aren’t inclusive of all the factors that could set you apart or equate you to being one of the ‘other guys.’ If you find yourself doing some of the ‘wrong’ things, decide to change course. If you’re doing the right things, always evaluate their effectiveness and fine tune your strategy and messaging as needed.
Above all, market, market, market.
