6 Sad Ways Small Businesses Owners Waste Money Marketing

By Tony Yeung — Originally Published at Apartment Number 2 “6 Sad Ways Small Businesses Owners Waste Money Marketing”

Marketing is not easy.

Small businesses often develop their own marketing strategy without any marketing department.

Although marketing is spending money to increase the brand awareness, not all marketing practices are for every small business.

In this article, we will see 6 common money-wasting marketing practices.

Practice 1: Using Too Many Social Media Channels

There are many social media channels. We can use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or YouTube to build the brand awareness and build the followers. Some marketing advice suggests that you need to have many social media channels.

Such advice does not work for every business.

Social media is good to connect people to the business. However, the most important thing is not to build the followers. Instead, it is to identify the target audience and engage with them online. If the customers like to comment on the Instagram posts, the business owners should focus on Instagram instead of tweeting on Twitter. That way can save a lot of time and money.

Practice 2: Creating too many new contents with no engagement

New business owners often want to create new contents as many as they can, but they ignore the engagement and content quality.

Actually, such practice may hurt the brand awareness.

There is nothing wrong to create contents, but quality over quantity. People like to see quality contents. On the other hand, your customers want a solid relationship with your business. They want you to know you value them. It is more obvious when you have a few loyal customers. The engagement is very important.

So, use some of your budgets to hire a content developer to create high-quality contents for your business.

Practice 3: Casting a wide net

Many new businesses like to cast a wide net because it seems like the simplest method to market the new business. However, such practice may end up wasting time and money marketing to the wrong audience or the wrong places.

Good marketing efforts will work better when the business owner target on the right audience effectively.

The business owner should go out and ask their existed customers where they spend time online, what encourages them to buy online and how they found the business.

Practice 4: Influencer Marketing

Paying influencers to market the business is not for everyone. First, it can be very expensive. Second, the business owner may waste their money on the wrong influencers. Third, the influencers may control the contents yet it is not what the business owner want. Fourth, if the business owner creates the products for a small niche market, influencers are probably not going to help much.

If the business owners believe the influencer marketing is the right way to market the product, they need to identify the key influencers in their industry in order to build the relationships.

Practice 5: Video Marketing

Many business owners believe that video marketing works well and hire a production company to do an impressive or perfect marketing video.

Apparently, the business owners can do a simple yet powerful video by themselves. A perfect product demo products could be boring, but it can possibly have less engagement. A preview of a new product video may have more engagement.

Different social media channels have different results. A video on Instagram will have different engagement than on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. Posting the same video content across different social media channels may have a bad impact on marketing too.

Before planning on the video marketing, do some research for your business. Develop a clear and detailed strategy with clear goals.

Practice 6: Expecting the result too much or too soon and then giving up

New business is risky. According to the Small Business Administration, 30% of new startup fail within two years. Nearly 50% of startup businesses fail within 5 years. Many small business owners expect too much on their business. They want to have the result within a short period of time. They give up their business when the outcome is not great at all.

The problem is that many small business owners expect too much on their business. They spend money on different marketing campaigns. They want to have the result within a short period of time. Unfortunately, they shut their businesses down when the outcomes are not great.

Developing a long-term marketing strategy is important. The business owners need to know their long-term marketing budget instead of short-term. Yes, running a new business is difficult.

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About the Author

Tony Yeung is a digital marketing specialist and the owner of Apartment Number 2, a consultancy focused on helping entrepreneurs and marketers see results with SEO, social media, and content marketing. Apartment Number 2 has worked with a range of clients from Publishing Company and Medical Company to a new startups.