21 Top Marketing Mistakes Small Business Owners Make | Bids By Pros 4
Marketing is the heart of every business and keeps the health of the company in balance. But heart must be treated right. Eating healthy, exercise and lack of stress are keeping the heart healthy to beat the life into our body. Practicing and implementing the right marketing strategies keep the business in shape. For more business flow and traffic more heartbeat and more marketing is needed to keep the balance.
Don’t make mistake if you had a good run. Many small business owners get too excited for this temporary beat of recognition and look at it as everlasting. To keep the balance of the business, marketing and planning should match the flow of the business. Increase your strategies as your business grows and increases.
Lets continue on the marketing mistakes:
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14- Hiring anyone to do your marketing:
Many small business owners recognize the importance of marketing and development and out of desperation and lack of networking, hire wrong people to do their marketing. As we said earlier, every business has unique offering and services so must focus on unique planning for its marketing strategies.
There are many marketing and PR firms or individuals in this business. It is the small business owner’s responsibility to hire a proper individual or firm whom can relate to the business’s need and offerings.
A good reputable PR and marketing firm whose focus is to promote books and authors might not be a good fit for a small local bistro. A professional PR person that is fit to understand the need of your business, plans the marketing strategies built effectively only for benefiting your small business, not any business in the same category.
15- Underestimate the value of existing clients:
A good businessperson always knows the value of the existing clients. The best way of follow up with the existing clients is to create informative data about them. Many small business owners lack this very important source of information. To avoid this mistake, every business must keep a record of every client’s information. If the information requires certain personal data, it must be in a safe place and highly protected.
A client that has already experienced your product and service knows about the quality of it. Always follow up and don’t be afraid to ask them how they liked your business. Every customer appreciates the follow up call or email.
Many small businesses hesitate this important task because it might backfire. Every business ought to understand the level of satisfaction the client has to build a relation. Even if the client responses back with dissatisfaction is a perfect opportunity for the business owner to fix the problem.
Gain a new customer can be costly. I am gong to explain this by an example:
“Nancy enters Joe’s cafe with a coupon she found in a local magazine offering 10% discount. She solely relies on a menu attraction, prices, quality of the food and customer service she risks receiving. Joe the owner spent lots of money and time for marketing after analyzing the community needs, price affordability and the targeted niche marketing.
Joe has three ways to collect emails or phone calls for follow back:
A) Place a note pad in front of the cashier’s desk asking to put their email or contact info for special promos.
B) Placing a glass bowl by the cashier’s desk offering the weekly draw for free lunch from dropped business cards.
C) Offering comment cards and in there asking for their contact info.
Joe has three ways to accumulate client’s information and follow up with them. So everyday he goes through all the information and creates a secure data spread sheet.
Nancy finds the place charming and the food great but not a good customer service. It is Joe’s responsibility to follow up and gain back Nancy once again to avoid spending all these money and time again to attract another Nancy.”
Existing clients are the perfect way to promote every business. Send your special offering, communicate with them and even ask them to share your business with their friends. The rule is to communicate with the clients and not spam and bother everyday.
To make a short point, collect data and information from your existing clients and follow up and communicate with them is a very effective marketing strategy.
CC: Image courtesy and is sourced from blog.123print.com
16- Not offering give away and novelty items:
One of the most effective ways to attract clients is to give away your product or service.
A) Test run: Offer a monthly test run of your product and service and give away a sampler. People love to get samplers. It gives them information about your business and its quality offering.
B) Propose monthly contest: Proffer a monthly contest and give away a prize based on participating in your business. People love contest and it excites them to know they can win something. If it didn’t work, Lottery and Casinos didn’t exist.
C) Give out novelties with your business information on it. Mugs, pen, key chain, notepad, calculator, shirts and hats can offer your business information.
This is a business owner’s choice to give away the novelties as a freebies or sell it as a package with service of your business.
These are simple attraction and marketing strategies many small businesses do not offer.
To find printing companies, post your inquiry on project format in bids by pros and share it via social media with friends who can give you the best recommendation. It also let the community connect you to local printing shops and professional services to bid on your service request.
Keep reading as the final version of marketing mistakes small business owners make is on the way.
Don Z
