As usual, you do your best to find and come up with marketing ideas whenever you want sales to go up.
But your ideas don’t really work or last for long.
They mostly end up being a huge waste of time and money that you could’ve used on something else.
Well, I’m about to reveal to you not just why your marketing ideas aren’t working but also some of easiest and most common ways to kill your business.
I sincerely hope you avoid them.
Here are the 7 major reasons why.
1. big changes
40+ years ago, marketing was all about advertising and sales.
Not anymore.
A lot has changed since then.
Today, Marketing is no more just a department or a function.
Instead, everything now is Marketing
Marketing is in everything – from your day-to-day activities to the font size on your website.
- that new waiter you just hired in your restaurant, it’s marketing.
- every time you answer the phone, it’s marketing.
- the table saw in your carpentry shop, that’s marketing.
- that plastic bag you use at your grocery shop, it’s marketing.
- every time someone uses your product, it’s marketing.
In fact, your whole business is Marketing.
Which means, you and everyone in your small business do marketing 24/7/365 days – you just didn’t know it.
Marketing is no more just one or two things.
You need to see Marketing as the sum total of everything you do or your ideas won’t work.
2. jumping on every “new” and “hot”
Once upon a time, putting a signboard at the roadside was the “new” and “hot” way of doing marketing.
Today, you have Google, social media, blogs, websites.
And these “new” are always promising something “hot” that’ll boost your marketing through the roof.
With things like SEO, podcasting, tiktoking, instagramming, pay-per-click advertising and so on.
Well, that’s Ok. Things change and they mostly do for the better.
The only problem is, all of these “new” and “hot”, are actually tools and tactics.
They only work when you:
- understand what you’re actually trying to achieve
- and also have a good strategy to properly use them.
In other words, those “new” and “hot” mean nothing without a big picture or good strategies.
3. not knowing your strategy and tactics
First off, you always need a strategy and tactics to successfully do marketing.
Nothing happens without those two.
But then, understanding what strategy is and what tactics are, is even more important.
Because those two things decide the difference between a good idea and a very bad one.
You should never confuse the two.
So, what’s the difference between strategy and tactics?
Well, strategy is the big-picture planning you do prior to the tactics.
Simply put, strategy is the specific way you want to achieve something; and tactics are the details of how you’ll do it.
Let’s say you want to organize a party.
Of course, you wouldn’t just start buying and ordering stuff.
Right?
You’d first plan everything out.
Now, your plan for the major stuff like the party theme, location, down to the glasses and plates you’d use – that’s strategy.
After the strategy, how many glasses you’d need, which caterer to hire and what kind of music you’re going to play, well, that would be your tactics.
4. wrong approach
Now, there’s no doubt that, you look at big and successful brands for marketing inspiration from time to time.
You look to them a lot when it comes to your marketing.
Even what to say in your advertising are mostly from watching those big companies.
Well, that’s Ok.
It’s smart to be inspired by others – especially by other successful businesses.
But there’s a little tiny problem with that.
When it comes to marketing, big brands don’t actually have the same agenda as small businesses do.
Their priorities are a whole lot different from any small business’.
For you, obviously, your one and only marketing priority is making profits.
But for a big brand, its marketing priorities may look something like this:
- making the board of directors happy,
- satisfying shareholders,
- attracting investors,
- winning advertising and creative awards,
- and then, making a profit.
And so, by doing what they do, you end up doing marketing in a way that’s wrong for your small business.
5. trying to do mass marketing
You and I know that big successful brands love to do advertising.
You see their ads, read their slogans and hear their jingles everywhere you go.
Well, that’s mass marketing for you.
It purpose is to keep reminding customers and prospects about your business as well as your products and services.
And to do that, you’d have to run your ads more times for people to easily remember you when they want to buy.
Honestly, mass marketing does work. But it’s also a very expensive strategy.
For it to work, you’d need to place your ads everywhere. Like on billboards, internet, TV, radio; in magazines and newspapers.
And, you’d also have to do it on a very regular basis and over a long period of time.
As you can see, this strategy is also wrong for your small business.
6. small budget
Well, it’s not only the approach and strategy that are different, but also the budget.
Big brands tend to spend a lot on their marketing so they could execute their over-the-top strategies – and also, achieve all those priorities.
Their spending on advertising alone, is like 1000% more than what any small business could spend on all of its promotional activities for a whole year.
For that reason, your small budget is just going to be a drop in the ocean – totally wasted and ineffective.
Totally wasted on ideas that are wrong for your priorities; and also wrong for the level that you’re operating at.
7. having no plan
Always remember that professionals have plans.
Besides, you can’t make money without a well-thought-out plan.
And, as I said before, marketing today is the sum total of everything you do.
Which means it has a lot of elements and covers a lot of things in your business.
So, how do you control something that has a lot of elements?
Well, it’s simple. You’d need a plan.
Having a marketing plan, allows you to see how far your “ideas” go and how each decision really affect every area and corner of your small business.
It allows you to easily understand:
- what to use as a strategy and what to use a tactic.
- which idea is effective and which one is not.
- and what to improve and what to delete.
Just winging it or using random ideas won’t work.
Wrapping Up
It’s really great that you’re always coming up with ideas.
That’s a very good sign that you’ve got what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
But then, your ideas won’t work if you’re doing marketing the old way; and using the wrong kind of marketing for small businesses.
Small To Sprout 