You may have devised the perfect, ground-breaking product, but all of this might be for nothing if your marketing isn’t on-point from the very start.
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By Panumas Yanuthai
Marketing Mistakes Can Ruin Your Business
The failure rate for small businesses is unfortunately very high. Many experts believe that around 60% of small businesses fail within the first five years. The failure rate is even higher for businesses in highly competitive industries, such as food services.
There are a number of reasons for the high failure rate. Marketing mistakes are among them. You need to know how to market effectively to get the best ROI and ensure the sustainability of your business.
As most budding start-ups know, marketing is a key component of any business. Without it, nobody is going to know about your product, and competitors with perhaps inferior offerings are simply going to dwarf you.
This is the reason why online MBA qualifications are proving to be so popular. These contain a lot of content about marketing, and for the young entrepreneur serve to provide some knowledge on how to really kickstart their business.
Unfortunately, a lot of new businesses make some fundamental errors when it comes to marketing. These errors can be utterly destructive in the early days, and through the course of today’s post we will pinpoint some of them to ensure that you don’t follow a similar path.
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Mistake #1 – The build it and they will come philosophy
In simple terms, this mistake is simply not having any sort of marketing plan. A lot of new business owners are so confident about their product or service, that they think that people will automatically find them. Unfortunately, even with the immense technology we have at hand, this isn’t going to happen.
Sure, some businesses might get that initial push thanks to a viral campaign; something which captures the attention of the press or social media and ultimately takes their brand forward. However, even these businesses will have had to conduct a little bit of marketing to get themselves into said position, and it’s also worth mentioning that these cases can be few and far between.
Mistake #2 – You automatically assume you’ll claim top spot in Google
Google might be getting smarter, but don’t for a minute think that it is going to judge your product like a real person. It has a complex algorithm behind its search engine; with one of the main ranking factors being the number of other websites which link to yours. Ultimately, this is a form of marketing and if you don’t focus on this and basic search engine optimization principles, you are unlikely to rank well.
Mistake #3 – You try and sell to everyone
Once upon a time this might have almost been a valid approach to marketing. After all, many of the methods that were adopted by young businesses were there to hit the masses.
However, this form of marketing has changed. The online picture has changed things somewhat; and it means that your marketing efforts can be much more targeted. Even traditional methods like leaflet dropping can be more targeted, thanks to the wealth of data that companies can now provide on neighbourhoods.
Mistake #4 – You don’t track your results
Let’s conclude with something that almost links the above. As a new business, your marketing budget is going to be small, so you simply have to spend wisely. Despite this, a lot of new companies don’t track their results. They might generate sales, but they don’t know where these sales are coming from. Tap into technology like call tracking, and obviously online analytics, to see which of your efforts are prompting the best rewards.
Start Changing Your Marketing Strategy Today!
Your marketing strategy is key to the survival of your business. A number of mistakes could be holding you back. Hopefully, knowing about these mistakes will help you be more successful. Best of luck!
