3 Marketing Strategies That Will Surely Sink Your Startup There is so much that can go wrong by surprise when you're growing a business that you have to avoid what is certain not to work.

Do you like when other people prove you wrong?

I think it's probably safe to say that most people don't like to be wrong. It's kind of like the natural aversion to the nails-on-chalkboard sound.

Recently, I asked my fans to send me examples of marketing tactics they've tried for their businesses that ended up failing miserably.

I got a ton of really good responses, and, as I read, I noticed many of them converged into the same sorts of admissions.

Pay close attention, because there's a good chance that you can relate to one of these most-definitely bad strategies.

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Bad strategy No. 1: "Spray and pray."

The core philosophy behind "spray and pray" is that more is always better. This is also known as the "shotgun approach": If you make 10 calls and none of them work, make 900 more. Seems legit, right?

It's the same approach many people take to getting a job these days -- submit 100 résumés and see what sticks.

This is the approach one reader took when he canvassed his entire neighborhood looking for customers for his fitness business (personal training)--and the results were brutal. He gave away 2,000 free sessions.

Wait ... 2,000 free sessions?! OK, I'm hoping that 2,000 free sessions was a typo in his email, because if not, yikes.

Related: Ignore the Uproar. The Instagram Algorithm Change Is a Good Thing.

Why the spray and pray strategy doesn't work.

First of all, I'm not knocking the hustle. It will take tons of grit and rejection to make your business stand out. It's tough in the beginning, and I've taken this approach too. So there's nothing to be ashamed about.

That being said, here's why spray and pray rarely works:

1. If the demographic you're targeting is too large, it's much harder to determine who truly needs your product or service and who is not a good fit.

2. If you're using this type of broad-based approach, it's likely that you're going to be cold calling -- meaning that people don't know you or trust you yet. This creates another barrier. It's much easier for them to just close the door, hang up the phone or ignore the email.

What to do instead.

You have to find a way to target the exact type of person you want to speak to. If you find people who already want what you have to offer, there's no need to convince them, because they already want it!

Approaching people who are already warm to your product or service will save you time, money, and frustration in the long run.

Related: 20 Ways Your Business Can Outrank Anyone Online

Bad strategy No. 2: Expecting word of mouth to blow you up.

You just launched your business. It's your baby. You've been slaving away for weeks (or months) creating something that you're genuinely proud of, and you know people are just going to love it!

You think, worst-case scenario, your friends and family will be supportive and show some interest.

(I just did some quick research: The average Facebook user has 338 friends. That's a lot of people to spread the word, right?)

So you launch your project. You're waiting excitedly for the viral buzz to begin cascading through the interwebs.

Then, nothing happens. Been there. Hurts. When I launched Rich20Something in November 2012 I had such a hard time getting people to acknowledge the site even existed.

I was doing epic interviews with really successful people, and all my so-called friends were freaking crickets. My Facebook news updates were regularly getting zero comments!

Now, fast-forward to 2016, and I can put up a completely ridiculous (albeit fun) meme with Leonardo DiCaprio and this happens:

What's the difference? How come one approach got hundreds of people to spread the word digitally while my younger attempts fell completely flat?

Related: 5 Online Marketing Basics Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know

Why the word-of-mouth strategy doesn't work.

Let me just say, first and foremost, I'm a big fan of word-of-mouth marketing. In some cases, it can work.

But most of the time, it doesn't.

When we launch something into the world, it's completely normal and natural to expect that the people who love and care about us will support it. They support us, so by logic it follows that they will they support our work.

Unfortunately, this is very rarely the case.

The reality is, people are wrapped up in their own worlds. Everyone has his or her own challenges and struggles going on. Everyone feels busy. Your friends love you and want you to succeed -- but unless your ideas really resonate with theirs, and they are invested in your cause, it's unrealistic to expect your network of family and friends to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to spreading the word.

What to do instead.

Instead of depending on Mom (a.k.a. your family, friends and acquaintances) to open the floodgates of public awareness for your business, you have to purposefully cultivate a community of people who are:

1. In line with your ideas.

2. Are talking about your ideas.

2. "Trained" to share these ideas through constant interaction.

The reason my second Facebook post got so much more attention than the first was that I spent a lot of time cultivating an audience whose members care about the specific message, then I simply shared something that I knew they would like.

Bad strategy No. 3: Reliance on Facebook ads and paid traffic.

Are you in the mood to waste a ton of money and get no results? If you are, you can jump from this section into buying Facebook ads. This was by far the biggest regret readers reported to me when I asked what marketing strategies they'd tried that had failed.

I have at least 20 people in my inbox saying that Facebook ads flopped for them.

Clearly, this is an issue, so let's talk about it.

Why Facebook ads don't work.

To be clear, it's not that Facebook ads don't work all around. They certainly can work, and they do work for many businesses. The problem with FB ads is twofold:

1. Although the interface for setting them up is relatively simple, actually making the creative (a.k.a. the artwork), tweaking all the settings, finding the right audience and then determining ROI all take a long time to master. Most businesses that are crushing with FB ads have a team (or at least one person) whose only job is Facebook marketing.

I should know: We hired a team to do our ads, because I have no idea what I'm doing in that department.

Unless you're a pro, it's going to be very hard to get results. Facebook ads take a lot of work to manage.

2. The even more obvious downside for early-stage businesses is that you stand to lose money for making mistakes on this platform. If you don't know what you're doing, or you don't have your product funnels set up correctly, you'll basically spend all your money to get very little reach.

Not a great way to get started.

What to do instead.

If you're just starting off (or even well past the startup phase), the guaranteed method for you and your business is to optimize social media and regularly connect with your tribe. Do everything you can for free to get eyeballs on your work. Don't spend money or time on Facebook marketing until you absolutely have to.

If you're wondering when that will be, there's no need to ask. You'll know once you've exhausted every other potential lead source.