3 Typical Small Business Marketing Mistakes

Making mistakes is part of the learning process. Recognising them is the first important step. Madness has been described as continuing to do the same thing whilst desiring a different result. This is like running an advert week after week in your local publication that never provides a response or reaction and doing nothing about it, whilst at the same time hoping to get a result. There are many examples like this and we are probably all guilty of some of them.

Use the following set of indicators to raise your own awareness of the mistakes you may be making.

• No plan – haphazard activities
• Jumping from one failed idea to another without stopping to think
• Your marketing plan on a ‘post it’ note or in your head
• Untargeted attempts to generate sales
• Not really knowing what works and what doesn’t to make informed decisions
• Trying to do too much too quickly and making mistakes
• Wasting money, time and effort repeating what doesn’t work
• Poor decisions about what to invest in – believing the sales person
• No time to do it – suffering from feast and famine revenue cycles
• Mixed messages with no coherent theme
• Too busy doing business to consider how to develop business
• Over complicating marketing activities and messages
• Believing that you don’t have any marketing skills
• Struggling with the ‘blank paper’ syndrome
• Thinking that marketing is complicated – and avoiding doing it
• Relying on only one or two methods of generating business
• Not keeping good record of your customers’ contact details
• Not really being able to explain why someone should buy from you
• Hoping and praying that business will come to you
• Out-dated or weak brand identity

 

If you have mentally ticked ‘yes’ that is me in any of the above you are being honest with yourself. We have all been there. You learn by first getting some awareness of what is not working. It is only then that you can start to move forward.

This book will provide you with many of the answers that you have been looking for, as well as help you to action the inspiration it gives you.

4 Creating Your Marketing Plan

What Is A Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan is your guide to exactly how you are going to action your business marketing. It is the ultimate outcome of your thinking and decision making. It is your commitment on paper, your route to success.

Why Is It Important?

It is common practice among many small business owners to spend a lot of time doing as opposed to planning. You may have a plan in your head that you have not yet committed to paper. Getting out there and making things happen is vital to the success of any small business marketing; it is important, however, that they are the right things. You can spend a lot of time and waste a lot of energy doing things the wrong way or simply just doing the wrong things. A simple marketing plan that you can create yourself using the ideas in this book will keep your business marketing on the right track.

Your Challenge

Your challenge is to take the following eight step plan with their accompanying think marketing questions and create the notes for your plan as you go through the relevant chapters of this book. When you have finished the book you should be in a position to devise a complete marketing strategy that is right for your business.