There's tons of online content on effective small business marketing strategies. But there are a few techniques and strategies that business owners need to know and avoid. These small business marketing mistakes may not seem like a big deal, but in the future, when lead generation takes a hit, they will be significant.
Read below to learn the 6 most common small business marketing mistakes and how to avoid them.
1. Writing content without a plan
You shouldn't create content just for the sake of creating content. Yes, writing blog articles, e-books, and white papers has proven to be effective. Recently, however, more and more people are overwhelmed by this kind of content.
You need to make sure it's high quality and useful, and it's in line with your specific buyer persona.
A big part of marketing is empathizing with customers. What challenges are customers dealing with? Also, how can we help? Talk to your current clients about why they came looking for you and what challenges have been mitigated by the services you provide.
If your customers feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of challenges they face, there's no challenge. All you need to worry about is what customers are searching for online. This requires keyword research and ultimately uses those keywords to create SEO-optimized content.
And all of these keywords and content tiles should be recorded like a large spreadsheet.
Struggling with your content strategy? Download the Small Business Marketing Plan e-book for free!
2. Create (and delete) spreadsheets
We've all been guilty of making spreadsheets and then dusting them in a folder somewhere. In terms of the founder's marketing and sales efforts, this could be a serious blow to your growth.
Even if it's a self-made database, it can be difficult to handle if you don't use it properly. It's useful for one or two tasks, and it can also gather related data, but it can't be integrated with all other work. There are many parts of marketing and sales for small businesses that must be viewed from a holistic perspective, such as publishing on social media, creating landing pages, identifying prospects, and even newsletters.
One great CRM and marketing automation tool is HubSpot. While it covers a wide range of marketing and sales automation, it also provides tools to analyze implementation results of initiatives. It can be overwhelming at first, so I recommend entrusting HubSpot implementation and operation to an expert.
HubSpot also has an entry-level version you can use to expand your business and B2B marketing efforts. A robust CRM with marketing automation is designed to be as easy as possible for small business founders to use.
Managing marketing and sales doesn't have to be complicated; they just need to work together. The same goes for inbound and outbound marketing strategies.
3. Choose outbound marketing across the board
“Outbound marketing is a traditional marketing method aimed at delivering a message to potential customers. This is costly, and the ROI is much lower than inbound marketing.”
You might think outbound is more important than inbound marketing. Unfortunately, people are learning to tune out ads. After all, there's a reason why caller numbers, ad blockers, and other mechanisms have come into existence. In 2019, approximately 25.8% of American internet users blocked ads on their devices. In other words, one-quarter of paid ad messages didn't reach the audience.
Caller ID is the same concept when it comes to outbound marketing. If an unknown number calls you during the day, you may not be able to answer the call. People need to trust you before they buy from you. Inbound marketing focuses on providing such knowledge to build a sense of security.
If potential customers trust you as a reliable source, they'll buy from you. If outbound marketing is a way to appeal to small businesses, then inbound marketing is meant to show how you can help.
4. Put all your energy into small business
Imagine sitting in a restaurant with your friends. They're all talking about themselves and they haven't asked a single question. After a few minutes, you're lounging on the couch and dreaming about watching a movie.
This is what happens when small business owners only communicate about their services. Maybe prospects don't want to hear how great you are when they have a great service or product.
They take a breath at you and look them in the eye and ask, “What's the most annoying thing you have to deal with every day?” I want you to ask.
If you listen to the other person's issues and understand them, you can help them solve them. Some clients tend to do that, but when you explain how trust is formed with potential customers and how it affects lead generation, the light bulb lights up.
And there are clients who want to try every part of marketing they've heard about in the past 2 years.
5. Trying to do all the marketing at any time
It makes sense for founders to want to do as much marketing as possible. However, most (if not all) small businesses have limited budgets, making it difficult to choose what's important to generate leads.
We always tell our clients to learn how to walk before running. That means you can focus on a few channels where your buyer persona is most likely to spend time online. To get started, we'll spend at least a few months laying the groundwork and seeing how we can optimize and improve the customer's current strategy.
Basically, we pick a handful of marketing channels and eliminate them completely. This makes it possible to flexibly allocate limited resources to new channels when one channel begins to decline, and large investments can be made in channels that are bringing success.
Trying to handle every part of marketing can be tricky, but it's better than wandering around in the dark hoping that the perfect prospect will knock on your door.
6. Moving without a plan
Small business owners have a myriad of things to do. It's hard to take time out of the day to develop an inbound marketing strategy when you're already busy with other important tasks.
However, performing these tasks without a plan is a surefire way to spend money and time without getting any visible implementation results. To get away from this small business marketing mistake, take a step back and invest in a great small business marketing plan that will help you get ROI from inbound marketing.
Download our free e-book to develop a marketing plan and prevent small business marketing mistakes!
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