Marketing Mistakes You’re Making As A Small Business Owner & What to Do About It

As a small business owner, the business that you run is more than just your job - it’s the thing that gets you excited about waking up every morning. You want nothing more than to see it grow and thrive, and effective marketing skills can help you scale and grow your business. In fact, one of the main reasons small businesses fail is a lack of successful marketing initiatives. Here, we’ll talk about the 6 most common marketing mistakes small business owners make and what you can do instead to grow through marketing. 

You Don’t Have A Website

Some small business owners don’t believe a website is necessary because they get their customers from foot traffic or word of mouth. The thing to keep in mind, however, is that most consumers will search for a business online. (Think about how many times you’ve gone to a new city and searched for “restaurants near me” ) 

Even if you don’t have a physical location and your business is completely remote, you likely spend a lot of time responding to inquiries about what you do and what your prices are. You can save a lot of time by having your most frequently asked questions already answered on a website.

The Fix

Maybe you don’t have a website because you think it will be too hard to set up and maintain, but there are many platforms that have ready-to-go templates, like Squarespace. If you’re feeling like you need support, you can always turn to a website like DesignRush to find a website designer who can help you get started. A simple, clean website will be enough to establish your presence online and help you reach new customers and stay connected with your existing ones. 

Ignoring Your Analytics

Having a marketing strategy in place is the first step to creating more brand awareness and engaging with your target audience. The next step is to keep track of analytics to see what’s working and what isn’t, so that you can invest more of your budget and time into the former.

The Fix

Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will help you keep track of your marketing campaigns. KPIs are critical indicators of progress toward an intended result. For example, if the intent of your campaign is to drive traffic to your website, your KPI could be the number and frequency of visitors you get over a period of time. 

You’re Not Keeping Track Of Your Competitors

Many small business owners ignore their competitors out of fear of becoming an imitation of them. However, it’s important to know what your competitors are up to, and watch their strategies to see what works and what doesn’t. Your brand will always be unique, but you can watch your competition for tips on how to engage with your target audience. 

The Fix

Find 2-3 businesses that are similar to yours and keep track of their marketing and business strategies. For example, if one of your competitors is active on social media (which most businesses are in today’s digital world) pay attention to when and how they show up on their platforms, and what works best with their audience. What works well for them will likely provide you with some success as well, and you can put your own, brand-specific twist on it.

Viewing Everyone As Your Ideal Customer

Many new small business owners mistakenly believe that everyone is their ideal customer. While this is an ambitious way of viewing your potential customers, it makes it incredibly difficult to create and execute an effective marketing plan because there simply is no way to appeal to everyone. 

The Fix

Identify the characteristics of your ideal customer, from demographics like age and gender to more psychological identifiers such as interests and needs. By creating an ideal customer, you’ll be able to narrow your marketing efforts and create campaigns that are more likely to appeal to your target audience. More importantly, your efforts will likely resonate with them on a personal level and lead to greater conversions. 

Focusing Only On New Business

As a new business owner, you get excited about the prospect of getting new clients. More people find your business, love what you do and are choosing to spend their hard-earned dollars on this thing you created. It’s exhilarating! However, it’s even more important to stay connected with your current customers. 

Acquiring a new customer is five times more expensive than retaining an existing one. Plus, creating loyalty among your existing customers means more word-of-mouth advertising (oh, hello, FREE marketing!)

The Fix

There are many ways to nurture your relationship with your existing customers, such as: 

• Social media shoutouts 

• Personalized messaging in communication

• Rewards/Loyalty programs 

• Providing new content that adds value 

Choose 2-3 methods that work best for your brand and invest in making your efforts consistent.

Your Brand Isn’t Solidified

Brand marketing is something that we are truly passionate about at Hackett Brand Co. so this is, in our opinion, the biggest mistake small business owners are making - not solidifying their brand identity. Customers are far more likely to do business with organizations that they trust and from whom they know what to expect. In order to establish that trust, your brand has to be consistent, and that’s not possible to achieve without a solid brand identity. 

The Fix

Spend time developing your brand identity by answering questions about your mission, vision and purpose. Who are you as a brand? Why are you in business? What do you do and who do you do it for? Once you have those questions answered, spend some time developing your brand persona so that your messaging has a consistent voice, tone, look and feel, just like an actual human being would. Filter all of your communication - blogs, social media posts, emails, and even website copy - through your brand’s identity and you’ll be sure to have consistency in your messaging and build trust with both your potential and current customers. 

Hackett Brand Consulting

Hackett Brand Consulting exists to make a positive impact in the world by working with purpose-driven brands to bring their mission and vision to life. We do this by combining our desire to be a force for good with our marketing knowledge and experience, and we treat our clients’ brand as our own. Connect with us and we’ll show you how we can make marketing easy.