In virtually every area of business, entrepreneurs find pitfalls
along the way. Marketing is no exception. As the owner of a
business that helps other businesses market themselves more
effectively, I have spoken with hundreds of entrepreneurs about
various promotional efforts. Regardless of their industries, time
and again I see owners of companies large and small making the same
costly mistakes. Avoid these mistakes, and you'll save energy,
disappointment--and a substantial amount of money:
1. Putting all your eggs in one basket. If your
entire marketing budget is used on just one method of promoting
your business, you won't realize the highest return on your
investment. Diversifying your efforts will increase the frequency
and reach of your messages and stretch your marketing dollars.
2. Not measuring results. Measuring the results of
your marketing efforts allows you to reinvest in vehicles that are
working--and ditch those that aren't. Try tactics like surveys,
coded coupons, in-store response cards or focus groups to find out
how well your messages are being received.
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3. Firing before you take aim. If you find yourself
throwing money at every promotional opportunity, take a step back
and realize the benefits of planning. Set objectives, define the
audience you wish to reach and set your budget over the next six to
12 months. Once you have a plan, you'll realize the value of
multiple advertising insertions, elimination of vendor rush charges
and prevention of unwise purchasing decisions--like those 15,000
imprinted kitchen magnets that seemed like such a good idea at the
time.
4. Eliminating marketing efforts when things get
tight. When cash flow slows, advertising, direct mail and other
forms of marketing are the easiest expenses to reduce, right? But
cut these, and you eliminate the very activities that will bring in
new customers to turn your business around. Keep your communication
going, even when times get tough.
5. Not getting help when you need it. If you find
you're too busy to handle your marketing efforts or that your
materials aren't looking as professional as they should,
it's time to call in the reinforcements. Hire a full- or
part-time employee, a marketing or public relations agency, or an
independent business consultant, but make sure you're getting
the message out in a manner that reflects your business.
6. Fixing programs that aren't broken. If your
advertising campaign or direct-mail program is producing results,
don't change it just for the sake of changing it. Once you see
returns slow down, look for new approaches, but always test them
before implementing changes on a full scale.
7. Allowing ego to get in the way of common sense.
Ego tempts very bright people to do very dumb things. Your
marketing decisions should be based on factors that will positively
impact some area of your business--usually its bottom line. Hiring
an expensive multinational agency for a small account, sacrificing
valuable frequency for full-page advertising and buying blanket
mailing lists without matching criteria to your customer profile
are all examples of an ego that's sabotaging effectiveness.
8. Relying on hunches. It came to you in the shower:
the Big Idea for promoting your business. So you put all your
marketing dollars into, for instance, painting your delivery trucks
with neon colors. Before you blow your money on hunches, however,
you need to do your homework. Talk to your customers and others who
may have done something similar. Then test your theory by trying a
small-scale version of the Big Idea. If the initial results are
promising, go full-steam ahead. If not, you've saved yourself a
big neon headache.
Gwen Moran is president of Moran Marketing Associates, a
public relations and marketing communications agency in Ocean, New
Jersey.