6 Dumb Mistakes Small Business Owners Make When Marketing Their Business

Running a small business is one of the toughest and most fulfilling occupations you can do as a professional.  As a business owner you wear many hats; one of them is marketer for your business.  So what are the marketing mistakes small business owners most often make and how does ones overcome them?

Mistake #1: Not building a three dimensional profile of your customer.  To be successful at marketing any business you must know and understand your prospect.  This means you need to know their demographics, psychographics and what drives them to take action.  Building a profile of your customer will allow you to make better decisions on how to market to them and what offers to make so you improve your conversion rates.

Mistake #2: Underestimating the lifetime value of a customer.  Each and every customer has a value to your business.  By focusing only on attracting new prospects you limit the growth potential of your business tremendously.  Take some time to figure out how you can provide more product or service to your customer.

Mistake #3: Poor positioning in the marketplace:  In order to be successful in your industry you must be able to answer the following question, “Why should my customer choose me over my competitors?”  If you are unable to answer this question you should be nervous.  By positioning your business uniquely in the minds of your customers you will stack the cards in your favor.

Mistake # 4:  Taking your current customers for granted.  You have a tremendous revenue stream in your existing customers.  Setting up a database and marketing to them over and over again gives the opportunity to better serve them and invite them back to your business.  The best method of communicating to your customer is through a monthly newsletter.  A newsletter continues to build trust because you are communicating and educating through frequent non-intrusive contacts.

Mistake #5: Not testing:  Every element of your marketing and advertising should be tested on a continuous basis.  For example, if you are advertising in the newspaper the first thing you should try is different headlines.  Testing allows you to find ways to reduce your marketing costs while increasing revenue without much effort.

Mistake #6: Failing to train your customer support and operations people.  Most business owners understand that money should be spent on training sales people.  But few realize that training and development of operations people will help improve sales.  Everyone on your staff should be viewed as a sales person and trained as such.  This type of training will give your staff the mind set needed to propel sales upward.