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. Not utilizing 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 Investing In Small Business Marketing Research
You may be wasting your small business marketing resources if you are not researching your product, competition and market. The few resources that you'll save by not doing this research, will cost you much more in wasted marketing and lost sales.
Without the information acquired from research, small business marketing is built on incomplete and inaccurate information. This dooms marketing efforts from the beginning.
Furthermore, without research to guide small business marketing decisions, business owners are less likely to approach marketing strategically, are more likely to make individual disjointed marketing efforts, and are less likely to win new and loyal customers.
A little money spent on research upfront can assure that your marketing to the right people and in the right way to be most successful. In fact, your target market is so important that it is covered as the second of the three major ways that small business owners waste their marketing resources.
Small Business Marketing Mistake 2: Not Identifying The People Most Inclined To Buy Your Products Or Services.
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.
What you spend upfront to gather information on your target market, will more than return your investment in increased sales. Plus, it will save you from wasting your marketing resources on strategies and tactics that don't work effectively with your target market members.
In addition, target market research enables you to:
focus on your best potential customers,
gather vital information about this target market, and
plan at least seven marketing efforts that you will deliver each year to your target market.
By conducting target market research, you'll discover much about:
those who are your best potential customers,
the media to use to distribute your marketing messages,
their information needs and effective appeals to include in marketing messages,
their spending power and the best price-point for your product or service.
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
The third mistake is a result of the first two mistakes. Until you have done research on your product, competition and target market, you can't plan the best way to spend your small business marketing resources. When you haven't planned how to best spend your marketing resources, you can be persuaded to spend ineffectively.
Some small business owners believe that the only reason to complete a business plan is because banks require them for business loans. They fail to recognize the value of a business plan to guide their business, much less a marketing plan to guide their marketing.
If you haven't decided what marketing tactics and strategies are needed to reach your marketing goals, you are more likely to be persuaded by sales people to pursue tactics that are less effective and often just waste your marketing resources.
In order to keep your marketing efforts on track, you must have a marketing destination. You must know what it will take to get to your marketing goal, or you risk contributing to sales people's sales goals more than your own business and marketing 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.
The same is true for sales people who offer marketing products and services. If you don't have a marketing or business plan, you will fail to recognize when these are inappropriate for your target market. When you buy products and services that don't advance your business toward your marketing goals, you waste resources and sacrifice the opportunity to use those resources on tactics that would reach your goals.
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