21 Reasons You’ll Fail at Marketing
January 23, 2012
I don’t know what it is about Marketing, but everyone on earth seems to think they can do it. And yet I see so many people NOT doing it or wasting thousands of dollars and not getting results. I see business owners try the same things over and over, 
wasting more money, more time, and more energy. If I had 1/10th of what business owners waste on stuff that doesn’t work, I’d be the most successful marketing consultant on the planet. But I’m not because so many business owners would rather go it alone and fail over and over again rather than reach out and get professional help. I don’t get it.
I know there are those out there who will always try to do it themselves so in the spirit of not getting it, here are 21 ways to fail at marketing:
- Guess – Great marketing isn’t an accident. It takes research, educated decisions, testing, tracking and measuring. Guesswork will leave you customer-less and broke.
- Do what everyone else is doing- Every business is different and your marketing mix should be too. Following the crowd isn’t going to help you stand out from the competition!
- Listen to sales people Marketing is a long term strategy, not a special advertisement, publication, or website; but every sales rep you come in contact with will try to convince you otherwise. Marketing is a process, there is no magic pill and don’t let a slick sales person try to tell you there is.
- Don’t ask questions –Question EVERYTHING about your business and ask everyone you come into contact with as many questions as possible to learn, grow, and constantly improve.
- Do nothing – It’s simple, if you don’t Market your business, you will fail.
- Put all your eggs in one basket – Marketing is like investing, the more diversified your strategy, the better off you will be. Don’t invest all your time and resources in one medium or on one marketing tool – mix it up.
- Don’t track results – How the heck are you going to know what works and what doesn’t if you don’t track the results? If you’re not tracking you’re guessing, and we covered that in #1!
- Assume you have all the answers – Yes, I know: you know your business better than anyone. But do you know marketing? I mean do you REALLY know how and where to reach potential customers and how to convince them to buy from you?
- Don’t talk to your customers – No one knows your value – or faults – better than the people who actually buy from you. Talk to your customers – often. It’ll provide valuable insight and ideas.
- Don’t study your competition- If you don’t know how you’re different from your competition how are potential customers supposed to? Knowing your competition’s strengths and weaknesses will help you differentiate.
- Don’t set goals –Goals keep us on track; they give us direction. Without them you’re wandering aimlessly and most likely wasting a lot of time and money.
- Don’t build an email list – I don’t understand how anyone can market a business in today’s world without an email list! Email is the easiest and most inexpensive way to stay in touch with customers and prospects. If you aren’t building a list you’re missing out on huge opportunities.
- Don’t have an opt in form – Emailing current and past customers is a great start, but what about the people who visit your website, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn pages and then go away never to be heard from again? Wouldn’t’ it be nice to engage the serious window shoppers in some way? An opt-in form is the way to do it!
- Sell all the time. We’ve all met the slick schmoozy salesy types, right? And how long does it take you to high-tail it in the opposite direction? Don’t be one of those. An effective marketing strategy eliminates the need to sell all the time… really!
- Assume because you have a great product or service you don’t need a marketing strategy – Sure, some products and services might market themselves, but that’s rare. Real marketing success takes strategy, planning, and work.
- Assume that just because you have a good product or service you don’t need a referral system- Again, there are some products and services that people just love to talk about, but building a successful business solely on organic referrals and “buzz” is rare. Getting solid referrals, consistently takes solid planning and execution. .
- Assume anyone with a pulse is your client- Repeat after me: “NOT everyone is a potential client for me”. Now look in the mirror and repeat that every day! Find your niche – that segment of the population you are born to serve and you will uncover a gold mine!
- Don’t build relationships – I can’t stress enough how important this is. Hiding behind your computer screen, desk, or counter isn’t going to get you the level of success you want. You have to get out there – mingle, be helpful, connect people, and build relationships with the right people!
- Spend all your time networking in the wrong places –Not every networking group is right for you. Find the ones that will help you get where you want to go and avoid the ones that won’t.
- Ignore the internet – Facebook and Twitter may not be right for your business, but chances are your target market is going somewhere on line for information about your product or service. Your job is to find out where they’re going and be there!
- Don’t hire a professional- If you want to build an addition onto your home would you do it yourself or hire a professional? I mean, you know your home better than anyone, right? So why not do it yourself? Ridiculous, right? So then why would you try to “add on” – or grow – your business yourself? Hire a professional who has the right tools and knows the ins and outs of growing a business.
So what do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Want to share?? Please do! Leave your comments here.
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Why Small Businesses Need a Marketing Strategy
May 2, 2011
You decide to throw a dinner party. You want it to be the type of dinner party that people remember fondly and talk about for years. Imagine that you will serve an amazing meal and that your guests will rant about the delicious food, the great atmosphere, and the wonderful conversation. Now imagine throwing it all together without a plan. You won’t plan the menu. You
won’t plan the decorations. You won’t even plan the guest list.
Instead, you just go to the grocery store and pick up whatever is on sale that day, hoping that you can somehow throw it all together and make it work. You end up with a box of Fruit Loops, 3 lbs. of chicken fryers, 10 boxes of mac and cheese, Velveeta, and 2 litres of Hawaiian Punch.
For the guest list, you figure you can just tell one or two people and count on them inviting everyone they know – you’re sure a crowd of the most fun, excellent conversationalist dinner-party-guest-types will come.
Given this scenario, I want you to imagine the type of dinner party it will be now! Do you think you’ll be serving a delicious meal? Do you think you’ll have the best guests – and lots of them? Or do you think your menu will consist of some crazy meal made of Fruit Loops and Velveeta with a few mismatched guests including the boisterous lady from your spin class who ends up drinking too much and insulting everyone in the room and the neighbor down the street who hasn’t showered in weeks, shows up just for the free meal, and stands in the corner mumbling to himself all night?
Would you really rely on 1 or 2 of people to get a bunch of the most fun, outgoing, and best dinner party guests to your house? Would you plan a meal without a menu, a recipe or two, and a shopping list? Of course you wouldn’t! So then, why would you run a business this way?
Yet, that is exactly what small business owners do every day. They have a vision for a business: offering the very best product or service, standing out from the competition, and serving lots of happy satisfied customers who talk about their business for years! But instead of mapping out a plan for achieving all of this they go to work every day, work IN their business, deliver the best they can handle, buy whatever advertising is cheap or on sale, attend events because they think they should – all the while hoping to attract the right kind of customers who appreciate their work and are willing to pay a decent price for their product or service. And then they expect those customers to tell anyone and everyone about them, without teaching them how to refer the right kind of customer! (Think dinner party guests!)
Just like a dinner party, you can’t build a successful business without a plan. You need to outline a strategy: Who would make the best customers? Who do you want to invite to do business with you? What will you offer? How will you package it? How will you deliver it? How will you promote it? Buying whatever is easy and cheap and counting on a few people to spread the word might get you some results, but are they the results you want???
What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!! Leave your comments here.
By the way – if you like this post, I would REALLY appreciate your ReTweet! Thank you!!!!
Want a Successful Small Business? Forget Instant Gratification!
April 9, 2011
Here is a paraphrased summary of three different conversations I had with business owners this week:
Business Owner (B.O.): “Marketing doesn’t work, I tried it.” Me: “Really? Tell me more about that.” B.O.: “I sent out a bunch of post cards and didn’t get a single response!” Me: “Hmmm.. A ‘bunch’ you say? How many is a bunch?”
B.O.: “Two hundred and fifty!”
Me: “Ok… and how many times did you mail this group of two hundred and fifty?”
B.O.:“Well, just once, why would I do it again if it doesn’t work?” (Silly me…)
Business Success is a Journey
Nothing in life is easy. You’ve heard that right? Everything worth having requires a lot of hard work, a ton of persistence and loads of patience: Everything, from our education, to our relationships, and our careers. Did you expect to just go to a single class to earn your degree? Of course you didn’t- it took years of going to classes and studying! Did you expect to just show up at work for one day and earn a paycheck for the rest of your life? Sure, that would be nice, but no. Did you woo your spouse with pomp and circumstance while you were dating and then completely ignore him or her afterwards? Ummm, I certainly hope not!
So then why would you expect marketing your business to be any different? Why do so many small business owners expect marketing to be quick-and-easy one-time event? Place an ad and get rich! Yay!!!! Send out a postcard and make the phones ring off the hook! Wahoo! One ad, one postcard, one networking group and I’m set for life!!!
It Doesn’t Work That Way!
I’m sorry, it just doesn’t. No matter how hard you try.
I guess f you haven’t been doing sales and marketing as long as I have, mailing out 250 cards with a “10% OFF” offer and not getting a single bite may seem like an earth shattering failure… but trust me, it isn’t. If you sent out 250 post cards to your target market with an extremely amazing, compelling, and timelyoffer, on a consistent basis and didn’t get a single response, then I might be a bit more surprised.
Statistically, the chances of getting any measurable response from a single ad, postcard, email, etc. are going to be pretty slim – for many reasons…. Factor in the quality of your content/message (was it compelling, relevant, and timely?), your audience (did you target?… Know, I mean really target?) and your tracking methods and it can be nearly nonexistent.
But, Don’t You Know Who I Am?
Think about it: you are presumptuously putting your company/brand/message in front of the faces of Anyone-Who might at some point in their lives buy your products or services, assuming they 1) are your target market, 2) have made the decision to buy, 3) have allocated the resources to buy, 4) have no obstacles in the way of actually making the buy, and 5) they know like and trust YOU enough to want to buy from you.Holy cow with all of those variables it’s amazing we ever sell anything at all, isn’t it?
That is why a consistent and repetitive approach is key to effective marketing. For one thing, studies show that consumers don’t even “see” an ad until they’ve been exposed to it like seven times or something.
You are never going to build a successful business by sending one postcard or email or placing one ad serendipitously here and there. That just isn’t how it works- it isn’t how we as humans work. It takes time to build trust; it takes time for us to make decisions to move forward. It takes time for us to pay attention to all the “stuff” that’s bombarded at us each day – but that’s another blog topic…
But besides the whole “does advertising work or not” argument: Do you even know who your best prospect is? What their buying cycle is? What their triggers are? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, don’t even waste your time and your money on another direct mail piece, advertisement, networking event, or any other marketing tactic…. Really.
But if you really want to gamble your hard earned money, the next time you’re tempted to throw money away on an ad or direct mail piece without knowing the 3 things I outlined above, visit the nearest casino instead- you have a better chance of getting a return on your investment. Or better yet, hire Fortune Marketing Companyand invest in the long-term success of your business!
What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!! Leave your comments here.
By the way – if you like this post, I would REALLY appreciate your ReTweet! Thank you!!!!
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+Carolyn Higgins, President of Fortune Marketing Company
- Carolyn Higgins, President of Fortune Marketing Company specializes in helping small to medium sized businesses get the customers they need to sell more, increase profits and achieve all of their business and personal goals. We do this by implementing and managing marketing systems based on data and strategy - there is no guess work. For more information visit us at: FortuneMarketingCompany.com. We'd be glad to help!
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