As a small business owner, you need to invest wisely in any and all types of marketing. And, while many businesses spend a great deal of time putting and a little money into online marketing, they sometimes make mistakes trying to do the work themselves. In other words, you’ll find that your money is better spent when you focus it on a marketing strategy that’s designed to work for your industry and your small business brand.
A key to doing this is avoiding common mistakes. The following are some of the most common that you are likely making especially if you are handling the marketing work yourself.
- You are using keywords, but you haven’t put time into researching them. This is a problem. The fact is, you don’t know what the competition is using, what potential clients are really adding to search engines, or how much one word is used over another. You’ll need to invest wisely by choosing the right keywords based on research.
- Your ads and website are too technical. Do you really think that a client looking for help grading his or her yard wants to know about your highly technical equipment? The fact is, you need to appeal to the actual user of the website. What does he or she want and need and what is that client going to really understand about your product or service?
- You are the best. You may know that, and it may be true, but potential customers don’t want to hear that you are the greatest, best, #1 or other superlatives just because you say so. Give them numbers. Your business has saving $1 million for a client. You’ve been in business for 23 years. Be specific and be sure to be accurate.
- You are promising more than you can really provide. Can you really provide a full warranty on your service? Are you really able to get the job done faster than anyone else? The key is to provide a quality service and to stand out from the competition, but to do so in a reasonable, achievable manner.
- You are “we” focused instead of “you” focused throughout your ads. Instead of saying what you have, what you do, and what your business brings to the table, show how these benefit the customer. Your marketing language should be geared towards the customer’s needs and show how you are solving their problems.
Making these changes to your marketing plan are not just an option, they are a near requirement if you are going to see returns. The good news is these are easy changes to make that can greatly enhance even a small budget. Hiring the people to do the work for you is an even better plan!
