Marketing Mistakes That Waste Money

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Nobody likes wasting money on things that don’t work.

A lot of companies already operate on a tight budget, so spending money on inefficient advertising isn’t an option. We’ve made a list of nine mistakes small business make to lose money with bad marketing AND we explain how to flip the loses into wins.

1) Expecting too much too soon and then giving up.

A staggering 30 percent of all start-up small businesses flop in the first two years, and it increases to 50 percent in the first five years. So many small businesses start with a bang, bust soon fail.

The issue? They wanted results in a few months. When this doesn’t go as planned, they give up.

The answer? Plan for a two-year build-up process. If this seems like a stretch, create a marketing plan and feed it as much high-quality content as your budget allows.

2) You aren’t measuring your marketing efforts well enough.

You might have Google Analytics set up, but the question is, are you using it? If so, are you learning anything from it?

Most businesses we speak to can’t answer those questions simply because Google Analytics is confusing at first. Take some time to learn about Google Analytics to effectively measure your marketing efforts.

Another confusing area we see businesses run into is Google’s pay-per-click advertising platform, AdWords. Easily said we love AdWords and find it very effective. On the other hand, many businesses simply don’t learn how the platform works and go buy ad space, which a lot of times leads to poor ad performance. Essentially, they end up throwing good money after bad.

Easily fix this problem by properly setting up conversion tracking in Google Analytics and import it back to AdWords. This lets you see if your ads are effective or not. If you aren’t already tracking conversions from your digital marketing efforts, stop reading this ebook and go do that right now.

3) Using social media to “build a following”.

Social media works well, but a lot of business start with nothing better than trying to ‘build a following’.

This worked great when Facebooks organic reach was high, but now things are different. Thanks to algorithm changes, only a small amount of your followers ever see the content you post, which brings small business owners to run Facebook ads to be seen by their fans.

With more platforms moving to a pay-to-play system, expect to spend money on advertising if you want your fans to see your content.

How is this fixable?

Ad prices aren’t too expensive in 2018, but with more platforms moving to a pay-to-play system, expect to spend money on advertising if you want your fans to see your content. We advise that you use your current social media following to build an email list. Collect email addresses and communicate with your subscribers directly.

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4) Not understanding your audience.

If you don’t know what audience you’re going to target, you might as well burn your marketing budget.

First off, study the behaviors and thoughts of your potential customer. This will give you a general understanding of who you want to target. Then, lay out a solid strategy, set up a way to measure the data/results, and figure out what to say to them, how to say it, and where to say it. Those are a few things we do before we buy any advertising or create any content for a client.

The only point of marketing is to resonate with your target audience BUT first you need to be aware of who they are.

5) You’re not running any remarketing ads.

Most of the time people don’t convert the first time they are exposed to your business. Generally, it takes a few exposures to get somebody to convert, but that’s where remarketing come into place. It helps reach interested customers who visited your site before and brings the back to the site.

We recommend every business set up remarketing campaigns to convert people who are already familiar with your brand.

6) You’re trying to do too much.

A lot of smaller businesses have limited resources. They usually don’t have a full-time marketing staff and try to handle all marketing tasks themselves.

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One thing we say, is you can’t do it all. You can’t be on every social media, publish content all over the web, or try every new marketing trick that comes along. Instead, we advise that you really focus on knowing your audience well and using the social media platforms, websites and marketing tools they use. Hint: Use your competition to get a better understanding of your target audience.

7) Not knowing when mega-customers purchase stuff.

Yes, we call them mega-customers. You can also call the them whales. Either way, businesses need to know which marketing efforts are obtaining their most valuable and profitable customers. Generally, 20 percent of a business’s customers generate half or more of their revenue. Properly set up Google Analytics and you can measure this.

8) Running a huge one-time ad campaign.

There are so many marketing tactics it’s hard to decide what’s crap, and what’s not crap. That’s why we rely heavily on measuring results. If you have a smaller budget it makes NO SENSE to throw good money after bad. We always test a well-planned marketing strategy first, then scale ad spend accordingly.

Businesses that have a limited marketing budget should really consider not spending huge amounts on marketing campaigns that are completely untested. You have no clue if it’s going to be effective or not.

The answer? If you have a marketing budget of $10,000 only test an ad with $1,000 or less. If you are not able to get effective results with $1,000, then $10,000 probably would yield similar results.

9) You haven’t adjusted your marketing strategy in years.

The world changes frequently, and so does marketing. Even though we just told you to focus on what works, we also recommend testing new ideas a few times a year. Since marketing is always changing, you should adapt and change as well.

Is your business leaving money on the table? If so, it might be time to reassess your marketing strategy and test a few new ideas.