Common Small Business Marketing Mistakes
Being a small business owner means that each marketing activity you pay for takes on greater significance, since you don’t have a big budget. You can’t really afford for any one marketing activity to be a total flop because it will torpedo your budget for other things that you need to do.
Here are three common mistakes that small business owners make when marketing their small business:
Spreading your investment too thin:
Having a tiny ad once in a while in the local paper isn’t going to help you make a dent in the market. Niche down until you find an advertising medium that’s targeted to the market you are trying to reach, then invest in advertising that’s effective in reaching that audience on a regular basis.
The “glossy brochure”:
I couldn’t resist – every time I get a glossy little brochure in the mail from a real estate agent, I think about the money they’ve just wasted. It happens in all industries – a business owner decides to get some sales activity going by printing up some generic, nice looking/sounding brochures and sending them out. It rarely works. If the best idea you can come up with is “let’s send out some brochures because it’s been slow lately”, you need some more ideas. (like run a contest, call a reporter, do some high profile charity work – anything but the brochure)
The “coupon with no value”:
You’ve all seen this one – a coupon lands in your Inbox or mailbox but the discount is so pathetic you wonder why they sent it in the first place. Like the free home value appraisal coupon that local real estate agents send out (I’m not picking on them…). Or the coupon for a free roof inspection (gee, I wonder if they’ll find a leak?) Or an offer to buy way more than you need of something to get a modest discount.
My couponing advice – don’t run coupons very often, and when you do, make them great offers that people will flock to you for. That’s the point, isn’t it? Build traffic with a strong short term offer, then try to convert the traffic to buying at full price.
Coupons with no real value don’t accomplish either.
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