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Oops! How To Fix Costly Marketing Mistakes
By Sally Bell
Marketing is bewildering to many micro-business owners, who are far more versed
in their own business niche than arcane marketing details that seem to take time
from their primary work.
Yet effective marketing is vital to the success
of any business, whether it is a one-person firm or a Fortune 500 company.
In fact, marketing in some form is behind every dollar in revenue, says
Gene Fairbrother, the lead consultant for NASE ShopTalk 800.
“No
business can operate without revenues, and the driving force for every revenue
dollar is marketing – whether people see a sign out front, they were handed a
business card, or they heard about the business on the radio,” he says.
Jerry Oakes, of Synergy Consultants in Dallas, is even more direct.
“Marketing equals cash flow,” he declares.
Marketing mistakes can be
costly to a micro-business and they’re easy to make. But with a bit of strategic
thinking, mistakes can also be fixed. Here are some of the worst marketing
blunders that micro-business owners are prone to make, and the way to turn them
around.
MARKETING MISTAKE #1
Not Tracking Your Customers
“Without hesitation, the biggest
marketing blunder I see in micro-businesses is not tracking their customers,”
Fairbrother says. “Knowing where your customers come from is the entire basis
for developing where your future business and marketing comes from.”
Without tracking, you are marketing in the dark, and your business
revenue will likely stumble as a result.
That needn’t mean implementing
a complicated tracking system. You simply need to know how your clients found
out about your business.
“Just ask customers and keep a record of it,”
says Fairbrother.
If 90 percent of your clientele say they learned about
your business from an inexpensive direct mail piece, for example, and only 10
percent responded to a costly radio campaign, you can refocus your marketing
direction – boosting sales exponentially while cutting advertising expenses.
MARKETING MISTAKE #2
Targeting The Wrong Customer
No matter how necessary your
product or service may be to everyone, everyone is not your customer.
“One of the most common problems we get in ShopTalk is that people need
to develop a marketing plan,” Fairbrother says. “They say ‘everyone is my
target,’ but you can’t afford to market to everyone.”
Suppose you’re
selling so basic an item as a ballpoint pen. In targeting men, you might stress
how the pen is thick to feel comfortable in a man’s bigger hand and sturdy to
withstand harder writing pressure. In focusing on women, the emphasis could be
how stylish a pen is or that it feels natural in her smaller hand.
“Pick
a market and go after it,” says Fairbrother. “If you have two distinct
customers, develop a second marketing plan.”
MARKETING MISTAKE #3
Not Knowing The Difference Between
Marketing And Advertising
Many micro-business owners confuse
marketing and advertising. As a result, they often do too much thoughtless
advertising and not enough thoughtful marketing.
There is a distinct
difference between the two.
“Advertising is reaching a target audience
through a particular medium,” explains Ron Sofranko, whose Pittsburgh-area
S&S Group advises small businesses. “Marketing is the strategy behind that,
the planning and strategic segmenting.”
Without planning, it’s easy to
depend too much on advertising and miss many low-cost marketing opportunities.
That can be expensive, yet may not reach as many potential customers as another,
cheaper form of marketing.
For example, you decide you want to reach
potential customers for your car repair shop through a local radio station that
targets young people. You can run radio spots, of course. But that costs money.
Maybe instead, you can be a guest on a local radio program to talk about how
using a reputable mechanic for routine maintenance keeps an older car running
longer. That’s free publicity, a great addition to your marketing.
Advertising is vital, but only after you’ve thought it through
carefully. By broadening your marketing approach, you’ll reach more potential
customers and possibly reduce advertising costs.
MARKETING MISTAKE #4
Not Knowing Your Industry
You’ve developed a terrific marketing plan on paper. It balances
different forms of marketing and advertising. It looks sure-fire.
Sometimes, though, “What seems to be a great marketing plan, isn’t
always,” attests NASE Member Beth Hawkins, who was a recipient of an NASE
Business Development Grant in 2007.
Hawkins and her sister-in-law own
Lizzie B Cre8tive, a Tucson company that designs quilt patterns for the
wholesale quilt industry.
Soon after Lizzie B Cre8tive began in 2006,
the two printed thousands of color flyers detailing their designs and mailed
them to quilt shops across the country. Printing and mailing costs were huge for
their tiny budget, and they received few orders for their big cash outlay.
The women learned that their industry is “unique and quirky in that
sales are so hands-on. It’s a creative, visual, tactile industry,” says Hawkins.
They switched to meeting shop owners at trade shows and networking with
distributors. The marketing change paid off. Now they have distributors in the
U.S. and six other countries.
“It’s important to take the time to get to
know your industry, and the inner workings of how things are done within it,”
Hawkins says.
MARKETING MISTAKE
#5
Advertising In The Wrong Spots
Just as you
market and advertise to customers, your business is the target for other
marketing people. They want you to buy an ad in a neighborhood coupon book or
any number of other advertising vehicles that might not be right for your
business.
“Micro-businesses waste huge amounts of money in advertising,”
says Fairbrother. “Businesses are sold advertising rather than buying
advertising.”
That’s what Ken Kucel experienced. Kucel, who owns a
computer repair shop in the Pittsburgh area, was talked into advertising on
placemats at three local restaurants. He also bought a centerfold ad in the
member directory of the church next door to his business.
“These have
totally failed,” he says.
Then he bought a Yellow Book listing that
includes a $25-off coupon on service.
“It’s working amazingly well,”
Kucel says. “I could tell the day the phone book was released that the calls
went up, and they’ve stayed up.”
The difference? Placemats and the
church directory weren’t top of mind when computers failed and their owners went
looking for a repairman. The Yellow Book listing of computer repair shops was.
“Your dollars need to go where the most people will view it at the time
they need the service,” says Kucel.
Sofranko is more blunt. “You have
only so much in marketing dollars for the year, so you must really focus or your
spending will be totally ineffective. “Learn how to say ‘no, I’m not
interested,’ or ‘my budget can’t afford it.’”
MARKETING MISTAKE #6
Not Using The Internet Wisely
Nearly every micro-business needs an Internet Web site these days, but
it must be done right.
“Many micro-businesses don’t know how to use the
Internet as a marketing device,” Fairbrother says. “They just hope people will
find their site. But a Web site is really an electronic brochure, and you have
to market it as such. Just because you build it doesn’t mean people will come.”
Consultant Oakes advises optimizing your site, or promoting it in such a
way that it pops up high in Web searches.
While you probably can’t
optimize it nationally, “you can certainly be No. 1 in your local area,” he
says, which is likely to pull additional sales because few people bother
checking deep into a list of search results.
MARKETING MISTAKE #7
Marketing Inconsistently
Many micro-businesses experience continual feast or famine. They develop
a detailed marketing plan, execute it well, and are suddenly inundated with
work.
To make time for the work, they stop marketing. Then the work runs
out. So they ramp up marketing, and the cycle begins again, but revenue suffers
in the interim.
Fairbrother says that the failure to market and
advertise consistently is one of the biggest mistakes a micro-business can make.
“By the time you need new customers,” he says, “it’s too late.”
He advises treating marketing time as if it were a client.
“Schedule two to three hours for marketing every week, just as you would
on a project. Make an appointment with yourself to market. But if nothing is on
your work schedule, you better spend 40 to 50 hours a week on it.”
Marketing might include attending a chamber of commerce or networking
meeting, writing a brochure, updating your Web site, sending thank-you letters
to past clients for their business, or placing ads in the newspaper.
However you market, the key is consistency.
“Marketing doesn’t
just happen. You will never find time to market. You have to make time to
market,” Fairbrother says. “And if you do, your business will grow.”