These days, more than ever, your small business needs to be on the money when it comes to your marketing campaign. Stats show that a quarter of small businesses’ marketing budget is wasted as there is no clear target audience or desire to find the proper methods for reaching their target audience. Simply throwing money into the wind and hoping it blows back in your direction was a standard marketing method of days gone by, but more data is gathered in a world where we are more connected. Shopping habits are easier to identify, thanks to algorithms. Aside from sheer laziness, there is no excuse not to be nailing and targeting your ideal customer.
So, if you haven’t got money to throw into the wind on your marketing campaign, then you need to avoid these common mistakes made by small businesses when it comes to marketing.
What you can expect in this article:
1. Not Using Analytics
There is a wealth of information if you know where to find it. Use your business data on past and current customers to analyse their spending, identify their interests and activities and determine what marketing channel will influence them to purchase. If you are targeting a primality Gen Z-based audience, then you need to be on TikTok hitting the #fyp (for you page); if you are targeting parents again, you need to identify their age range and pop up them eat it ads on popular kids’ YouTube videos, social media ads or getting them to sign up to your email and hope for a 3am shopping spree while trying to get baby back to sleep. Find the data and use it to your advantage to make it work for you.
2. Thinking You Can Do It Alone
Sure, hiring a marketing agency or marketing experts can be an added expense in your budget; however, they are experts for a reason. If you have no idea what to do regarding marketing, you can go it alone and hope to strike it lucky, or you can use their knowledge, experience, and talent to help you get a foot in the door and use their resources. Whether this is drawing up an effective social media campaign, putting SEO in place, or using a sampling agency to promote your food and drink wares and allow people to try what you sell in real life. Use the pros and get expert help and advice to get your budget working hard.
3. Being Boring
Failing to inject some personality or get creative with your marketing will turn people away instantly. No one wants to read reams of boring information or be subject to old, tired messages and graphics. You need to add some personality and expose your brand correctly.
Consumers especially want to know the people behind the brand, who you are, why you do what you do and why they should be with you. You need to appeal to your customer base more personally to help you make an impact and reel people in. Let them see the authentic side of you, your personality, your values and what you stand for. Small businesses are the backbone of the UK economy, and letting people see what you are made of can be the best course of action for you.
