4 Unfortunate Small Business Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Small businesses have to be smart about their marketing. Budgets are limited, but the need to connect to customers prevails. But even the tiniest of mistake could have devastating consequences for the company.

Let’s avoid unnecessary fallout. By knowing about these typical blunders, you can take the right steps to further develop your brand.

1. Lack Of Personalization

Customers are dying for personalized experiences. They don’t want to feel like just a customer or just another number in your roster. But many small businesses fail to acknowledge this need. Adding their name to an email or text isn’t enough anymore. That’s the bare-bones standard for marketing and communication.

You need a specific and narrow target. This is beneficial for both the company and the customer. For the company, they get a better understanding of who their customer is and how to dig deep into their desires. And customers will feel like the company truly understands them, making them more likely to stick around and buy the products repeatedly.

Don’t be afraid to narrow down your buyer persona. Be afraid not to.

2. Not Sharing On Social Media

On social media, many marketing gurus tote a rule called the 80/20 rule. It means that 80 percent of the time you should be providing value to your customers. That could be sharing knowledgeable and problem-solving articles or videos. Or it could be trying to engage them to learn more about that.

But that means the remaining 20 percent is left for a promotional activity like sales, discounts, new product updates or changes. Keeping your audience in the know about the latest developments in the company should fill up this small bracket.

Many small businesses only focus on the promotional. Customers will tune out these promotions and ads because they get so many from other companies. Eventually, they won’t stick around. They’ll find someone who’s interested in helping them, not just selling to them.

Remember to add value as much as you can.

3. Ignoring An Easy Market

Retention marketing, have you tried it? It involves your current customers. Instead of constantly building relationships with new customers, focus on your current customers. They already know you and your product. They already love you and your product. So, they’re more likely to buy from you again.

Small businesses focus too much on new customers instead of their current ones. But why? The cost of getting a new customer can be upwards of seven times higher than an existing one. And you have to spend the majority of the budget convincing the new customer to buy from you. That takes time too.

Customer loyalty isn’t guaranteed anymore. Competitors pop up every single day. And if you don’t keep your existing customers happy, they’ll find someone who will.

4. Forgetting New Channels

You’ll never know which marketing channels you can leverage if you don’t try them. Yet many small businesses find one channel and stick to it. And that can be OK, especially if they’re getting results. But they won’t realize they could be getting much more customers or profits.

Using a singular channel isn’t smart. Customers often use many channels. By focusing on only one, the company limits their options. And what happens if the one channel they use goes away? Then you have to start over from scratch while everyone else is light years ahead.

Try other channels. Document results. Adapt to new changes or it could end up costing you.

Photo by Alice Achterhof on Unsplash