Digital Marketing Mistakes That Can Slow Down Your Small Business Development
You don’t have the time or money for these slip-ups
If you’re getting your small business off the ground, you’ll no doubt be eager to quickly begin executing on your marketing strategy. After all, the more people who know about you, the greater the chance of your small business development picking up steam.
It’s this hastiness that could see you falling victim to damaging marketing moves that will hinder rather than serve your best interests. For startups with small budgets and a limited pool of resources, it’s even easier to fall into these traps.
So, we’ve taken the trial and (lots of) error out of the equation for you and rounded up some common digital marketing mistakes to avoid at all costs.
Choosing ALL channels over the RIGHT channels
If you spread your marketing plan too thinly, covering every channel available, it’s doubtful that you’ll have the time and resources to properly optimize performance on each of them. Worse than this is trying to use a channel which doesn’t align with your business positioning or target audience. Some common channels include:
- Referral marketing
- Content marketing
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
- Bulk SMS marketing
The list goes on…
If you’re lost about where to begin, consider where most of your leads are coming from. If most people are finding you and converting because they’ve landed on your website, SEO is a great channel. If you offer a service that people will likely need again, bulk SMS messaging is an excellent way to send them friendly reminders. On the contrary, a business targeting an older clientele should probably give Instagram a miss, considering that this network’s user base is mostly made up of under 35s.
Good to know: some demographics are much more open to certain content types. For example, a B2C business is likely to find more success with short videos than a B2B, where white papers are likely to be better received.
Ignoring SMS and email marketing
Both SMS and email have been around for ages, and for many marketers trying to latch onto the latest trends, they incorrectly assume that these marketing techniques are outdated. This is far from the truth.
According to this HubSpot report, 93% of B2B marketers use email to send out content and 99% of consumers check their emails daily. Those are some impressive numbers. But SMS marketing is perhaps even more impressive, boasting an open rate of over 90%, which even emails can’t come close to.
Text messaging is immediate, with most texts being read within 3 minutes of being received.
When following best practices for SMS, it’s an excellent choice for time-sensitive marketing messages.
Related: Small Business Development — Ideas to Help You Scale Up
Employing a company-centric mindset, not a customer-centric mindset
Think about it. Nothing connects and unifies all departments and aspects of your small business development like your customers. By focusing too much on the company — from competing employees to budgets and compensation — you’ll send out generic, unappealing or inappropriate messaging.
“Marketing plays a critical role in enticing, converting, engaging and retaining customers, and organizations slow to embrace a customer-centric mindset will be left behind.” Penny Wilson, Hootsuite CMO
By maintaining a customer-centric mindset, you can use correct personalization, journey mapping, targeting, and data analysis techniques to compose the most relevant messaging.
“The best marketing strategy ever: CARE.” Gary Vaynerchuck, CEO of VaynerMedia
Employing a large marketing team too quickly
Investing in a talented marketing team may seem tempting, but it doesn’t always make sense to do this before determining your marketing needs. Staffing up quickly comes at a great expense, and you may want to first consider lower-cost options such as:
- Outsourcing to agencies or freelancers
- Taking on interns
Alternatively, by using free, low-cost digital marketing tools, you can automate processes. For instance, live chat tools mean you can provide customer support without needing to employ a support agent. Small business development means regularly assessing costs, and any automation tool that can take over some work for you can save you a lot of effort while also ensuring early digitization of your company.
Good to know: A report by ICM found that visitors who engage with your company via live chat are worth 4.5 times more than visitors who don’t.
Don’t wait until it’s too late to focus on marketing
In their story Marketing Mistakes Every Early-stage Tech Startup Can Learn From, Real Ventures starts off with the insight that a great product alone simply isn’t going to ensure success for your business. And whether you’re a tech startup or selling chocolate chip cookies, the same sentiment applies. As your product develops, so too should your marketing efforts. Holding off on the latter for too long can see you lose out on building a loyal, engaged customer base.
“…without significant marketing, your product simply won’t get the traction you’re looking for. By focusing on marketing early, you can communicate your vision as you build your technology.” Real Ventures
Your small business development depends on making smart marketing decisions
Really, it does. Irrelevant messaging, poor channel selection, or the lack of a coherent strategy can all cause more harm than good for your company.
Our final tip is this: evaluate constantly. Don’t ever fall victim to complacency, as there is always an aspect of your marketing plan that can be improved upon. Get your strategy right, and you’ll guarantee a happier customer base. Get that right, and there’s no reason why your small business won’t thrive.
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