Top 3 Small Business Marketing Mistakes
Small Biz Marketing Learning Curve Still Too High
As an agency hired to provide professional marketing counsel to our clients, we work with businesses large and small. As expected, the big guys have a much better handle on the concepts of brand management and marketing. But the learning curve for small businesses still seems to be a bit high.
It doesn’t take long to figure out that many small business owners don’t understand the basics of marketing in today’s digital age. Here’s our all-time top 3 things that most small business owners fail to understand when building their brand.
1. Thinking That a Logo is a Brand
Creating a professional looking logo is probably one of the first steps that small business owners undertake when developing their brand. And then they stop.
While it’s true your logo will be your unique visual identifier, developing your brand properly goes way beyond an icon and typography. To develop your brand the right way you must identify your unique offering, create a brand story around your offering, deliver on your promise to your customers and always practice what your brand message preaches. And you need to do this consistently, over and over and over.
If all your brand development effort includes is installing a nice logo above your door and printing the same on business cards and sales brochures, you need to take a longer look at the story your business tells — which is the essence of your brand.
2. Developing a Static Website
Static websites, sometimes called Brochureware, were common in the days of Internet 1.0 when businesses everywhere re-purposed existing printed sales materials, reconfigured them in some digital format, placed them online and voilà a website was born. This type of website no longer makes the cut.
Every website developed today for any business large or small needs to be a content-rich publishing hub that serves as the central point from which to push your marketing initiatives from and direct all inbound activities to. Without a modern, social media enabled, search engine optimized website that’s updated frequently your business will not be found through organic search. Proper site management and SEO activities are long-term, ongoing activities whose value cannot be overstated. The best way to develop a content rich business hub is to include a blog on your site, encourage social media sharing of your content and stimulate open, uncensored feedback.
If you want to drive your customers to your competition, then by all means rely on the old stand-by and build a static website.
3. Ignoring Social Media
Considered the least expensive method of marketing, social media sharing on sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are essential for any brand large or small operating in the modern digital age.
If your business isn’t actively using social media, you’re going to miss the boat on the best method to communicate your brand messages to your audiences. But don’t be fooled into thinking that social media activities are going to be easy. This type of marketing takes lots of time and effort.
The primary barriers for small business owners breaking into social media are 1.) lack of understanding and 2.) lack of available internal resources. The web is awash with information about social media. Search Google for information about Inbound Marketing. Create a LinkedIn account and join any one of a number of social media networking groups. There are plenty of resources at your fingertips to learn what you need to know to succeed. If you don’t have the resources to handle the level of work social media requires, partner with an external vendor that understands your business and gets your brand. Such a group will be able to get your up and running and help with ongoing community management.
If you want to make sure you’re business is a failure, ignore social media.
Related posts: