Click Partners

Poor small business marketing is one of the major causes of early small business failure. Poor small business marketing not only fails to get new and loyal customers, it also wastes small business marketing resources. Three major reasons account for this waste.

1. Failing to conduct small business marketing research.

2. Not targeting the people most likely to become customers.

3. Failing to create a small business marketing plan to guide your business.

Small Business Marketing Mistake 1: Not Utilizing Small Business Marketing Research.

You may be wasting your small business marketing resources if you are not researching your product, competition and market. The few resources that you’ll save by not doing this research, will cost you much more in wasted marketing and lost sales.

If you don’t have insights from research, you are more likely to build your business and marketing on bad information that decreases your chance of marketing effectively.

Without this research, you will be more inclined to build a marketing program that lacks focus. Research provides the groundwork to build a strategic marketing plan, to assure that every marketing tactic contributes to your marketing and business goals, and to attract your best potential customers.

Every penny that you spend on good research is money well spent. This is particularly true for research to determine your best potential customers, and the best way to market to them. Failing to acquire this information is the second major way that you, as a small business owner, may be wasting marketing resources.

Small Business Marketing Mistake 2: Not Targeting The People Most Likely To Become Customers

Business owners who don’t do research often don’t know the best target market for their products and services. Because they don’t determine who is most likely to buy their products, they market to everybody, and often don’t sell much to anybody. This type of small business marketing wastes marketing resources.

No matter what you think, everybody will not want or need what you sell. Marketing to those who won’t ever buy from you just wastes your limited small business marketing resources. Instead you should spend all your marketing resources reaching the people who comprise your best potential market.

Thus, your investment in target market research will return you much more in sales, and save you from wasting your marketing money on tactics that don’t work well.

With target market research, you’ll also be able to:

identify your target market,

gather vital information about this target market, and

plan at least seven marketing efforts that you will deliver each year to your target market.

Target market research will help you to better understand:

the people most likely to buy,

the best media to reach your target market members,

what they want to know, and how to deliver that information through your marketing messages.

how much spending power they have and what price they will pay.

Including this information in a small business marketing plan, will greatly improve return on marketing investments.

Small Business Marketing Mistake 3: Failing To Create And Follow A Small Business Marketing Plan.

This third mistake results from the first two. Without the proper research, you can’t have a good marketing plan. And without a good marketing plan, you will more easily fall for sales pitches.

Some small business owners believe that the only reason to complete a business plan is because banks require them for business loans. They fail to recognize the value of a business plan to guide their business, much less a marketing plan to guide their marketing.

If you don’t predetermine your marketing strategies and tactics, you may be tempted to buy into every marketing and advertising sales pitch. You, not external sales people, must be in charge of your small business marketing plan.

You need to have your marketing goals in place and make every marketing decision based on your goals. Otherwise you may fall victim to sales people who are more concerned with their sales goals than your marketing goals.

Don’t waste your small business marketing resources just because a sales person has a “great” promotion on media advertisements. If the advertisements don’t reach your target market, the promotion is not great for your business.

The same is true for sales people who offer marketing products and services. If you don’t have a marketing or business plan, you will fail to recognize when these are inappropriate for your target market. When you buy products and services that don’t advance your business toward your marketing goals, you waste resources and sacrifice the opportunity to use those resources on tactics that would reach your goals.