Five ways to avoid common marketing mistakes

Here are five common marketing mistakes that small businesses make and with a bit of planning you can avoid:

Mistake 1:

Ignoring your previous customers. Your past customers are a great source of information! Get their feedback on what can be improved, find out if they’re likely to buy again or recommend you to friends. Ask for testimonials and consider implementing a ‘refer a friend’ scheme. Remind them how much you love them with an e-news that gives them special deals or new products.

Mistake 2:

Not aiming for consistency in your marketing. Learning what marketing works best for your business takes consistency in the approach. You can’t expect to find out if an advert in your local paper is going to work from you after just one attempt. In all likelihood you’ll need to buy at least three adverts in three editions to start getting a result that gives you all the information you need about whether or not it’s a good spend of your marketing budget. Take a consistent approach to what you try so that you can test and measure in a meaningful way.

Mistake 3:

Having messy branding – it’s confusing for the customer and if they can’t create clear marketing, how can you expect them to understand your message? Take the time to analyse all your marketing and make sure that you have a clear message, target market, call to action and it looks consistent across your marketing materials.

Mistake 4:

Tumbleweed on your marketing channels! Make it part of your business and finance plan to redesign your website every couple of years. Good quality blogs and regular copy changes will keep you in Google’s good books. Pay attention to your social media profiles too. Set a goal to spend one hour a month creating five good quality posts that you can schedule in advance. Or get someone to do it on your behalf.

Mistake 5:

Not reinvesting in your marketing. Do you think you can’t afford to invest in marketing? Consider the fact that your competitors are marketing to your ideal customers and think again – can you afford NOT to invest in marketing.

Why not get a marketing professional to help you?

Getting a marketing professional on board is a great investment to make in your business. You can skip ahead past beginner mistakes and get a good, strong marketing plan in place to support the growth of your venture. Call Just Add Sauce Marketing for a first free meeting to find out what we can do for you.