Understanding the basics of brand building is an important part of marketing success, but getting it right can be challenging. Despite a wealth of knowledge and experience, you might end up compromising quality just to get the work done in a timely fashion.
Don’t risk squandering those efforts by making a common marketing mistake. These five obstacles could prevent your small business from reaching its full potential.
Mistake #1: Unclear target audience
Trying to appeal to everyone typically wastes dollars and time – both of which are precious to small business owners.
While your product may appeal to a large audience, and your general messaging may initially work, it shouldn’t be a long-term solution. As we explore in Aligning Strategic Communications with Business Goals, you need to have a well-defined, specific idea of who your audience is and deliver clear messaging that appeals to them directly.
Fix: The first question to ask is, “Who is my customer?” Avoid making educated guesses and assumptions on the needs and wants of your customers.
Consider developing a customer profile that includes demographic and lifestyle information. Another method to consider is surveying your current customer base to uncover buying trends and behaviors.
Based on the results of this relevant data, you can make adjustments to the messaging as necessary.
Mistake #2: Ineffective company website
While small businesses recognize the importance of their online presence, many make the mistake of having a “If you build it, they will come” mentality.
Simply building a website isn’t enough. You need a site that encompasses all the elements necessary for it to be a successful business tool that helps grow your business.
Fix: Convert followers to customers by including strong calls to action that appeal to your readers and encourage a response. These can be a “Buy it Now” button, social media widgets or a newsletter sign-up feature.
Ensure that your business contact information is sprinkled throughout the site, and that it is accurate and up-to-date.
You may also want to consider including testimonials/referrals and perhaps even a secure shopping option.
Mistake #3: A budget not based on performance
Frequently small business owners can’t tell you which of their efforts helped bring in the business. They oftentimes throw out marketing messages, hope for great results and continually repeat that process.
Track each of your marketing campaigns and you’ll know where to spend your money in the future, what to modify and what to eliminate.
Fix: Set goals for different marketing channels such as paid-per-click advertising, press release distribution and mobile marketing. Review the results with your team to identify which channels convert the highest, generate the most loyal customers and more.
Analyzing this data will provide you a better understanding of how your marketing efforts are performing, identify where you should invest moving forward and uncover any areas that need necessary adjustments.
Consider tracking additional engagement metrics – such as comments, how often the content was shared, time spent on site and audience opinion – to uncover more information about your audience’s path to purchase.
Mistake #4: The wrong content cadence
While readers want fresh content on a regular basis, you still have to determine the cadence that will resonate with your target audience.
Building a strong brand reputation over time requires ongoing exposure and you don’t want to blow your budget by investing in one tactic that doesn’t deliver on its ROI. Flooding inboxes with your marketing messages can result in high unsubscribe numbers and posting too infrequently can cause readers to lose interest.
Fix: The cadence of your marketing should be informed by your audience’s reaction to previous outreach.
Include frequency of content published, number of emails sent, spacing between emails, types of content sent and audience receiving them in your performance tracking. Analyze how these aspects of your campaigns made an impact and then improve your marketing based on it.
For instance, if you see higher open rates on Tuesdays or particular topics that are shared more often than others, you can make adjustments for future campaigns.
Mistake #5: Not keeping up with the competition
While you certainly don’t want to mimic your competition, being aware of who else is in your space and what they are already doing in the market can help inspire new ideas and set you apart from the crowd.
Keeping abreast of competitors’ marketing campaigns and studying their efforts can help you determine future successes and failures. Competitive analysis is important for small businesses and it doesn’t necessarily need to take a tremendous amount of time or budget.
Fix: Remember that you want to give your customers good reasons to come to you rather than a rival.
Take a look at your competitor’s website to pinpoint any differences between your website and theirs. Do you see any holes that your product can fill?
Follow competitors on social media to read customers’ concerns and how your competitors respond. You might even want to consider working as a good old fashioned secret shopper to track the entire buyer’s journey.
The insights you learn can help you best allocate your marketing resources for future campaigns.
Unfortunately, regardless of the amount of planning, research and implementation you do, marketing mistakes can happen. While it’s necessary to identify these blunders, don’t linger. It’s important to implement a real-time strategy, follow the right steps and stay disciplined.
Learn how to make more profitable marketing decisions by identifying meaningful performance metrics and connecting your marketing and communications efforts. Download our free white paper Aligning Strategic Communications with Business Goals for more tips.
Author Amanda Eldridge is the director of strategic channels at PR Newswire where she educates small business owners and nonprofits on affordable PR & marketing solutions. She has 15 years of experience in both communications and journalism and has worked in a variety of roles to put her into a position of expertise in her field. Follow her at @prnsmallbiz for tweets about small business marketing trends.
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