7 Marketing Mistakes Almost EVERY Business Makes

Mistake #1: You don’t have a USP 

What’s a USP? 

Your unique selling proposition, or in layman’s terms, what makes your business valuable.

A unique selling proposition is vitally important because it conveys to the market why you are different from your competitors, and why we should be doing business with you, instead of the other guys. 

The consumer has more choices today than at any other time in human history. Until you sit down and map out who you are, why you’re different and why anyone should care, it’s going to be a constant struggle to bring on new customers, and just as hard to keep them coming back.

 Just keep asking yourself, “What value do I bring to the market? What do I offer that no one else can, or no one else does?”

 If you can’t come up with anything that separates you from the pack, you’ve got a major problem. It’s time to seriously think about why you got into business in the first place and how you can improve what you offer the community.

If you can, though, you’ve just uncovered the specialty that is going to make you irresistible to a certain group of people. After all, you wouldn’t go to your GP for dental surgery, would you?

Being an entrepreneur and owning your own business can be hard but it’s damn near impossible if you don’t differentiate yourself from the competition, but if you get this right, it will make all of your marketing and sales efforts easier than you can imagine.

 

Mistake #2: You haven’t defined your target market

On the other hand, just as you can’t offer everything to your customers, you shouldn’t offer your work to everybody! 

By targeting your offer to a specific group of people, you create a service or product that’s both exclusive and desirable - you’re hanging a velvet rope across your storefront and saying “only this kind of customer can come in.”

“Now, Jamil” you might be thinking, “You said this report would help us get MORE customers! Why would we turn people away?!”

Good question. The answer is that focusing on a particular target market, and tailoring your marketing message specifically to their hopes, fears, and needs, will let you dominate that smaller market and end up in a better position than when you were trying to please the broader audience.

Yes, you’ll turn some people away, but if you do this right, you’ll have more business than ever. Your customers want a service that feels like it was custom made for them. You should narrow your focus until you’ve honed in so closely on their interests that they might wonder if you’re reading their mind.

To paraphrase Jay Abraham, if you can explain the problem that they’re facing better than they can, they’ll automatically assume you have the solution.

You can’t be everything to everyone and the sooner you realize that, the better, so take the time to sit down and figure out who your best customers really are, and commit to marketing just to them.

For now, look at your current and past clients and see if there are any similarities between them and go from there.

Most businesses get 80% of their revenue from just 20% of those customers.

Try to figure out what those customers have in common so you can redesign your business to bring more of them in.

Knowing exactly what kind of customers you want to do business with will be critically important in the next step...

 

Mistake #3: You’re not actively generating leads

There’s nothing better than when an excited prospect picks up the phone out of the blue and wants to do business with you.

But for many business owners, those happy surprises are few and far between - maybe they only get a few of those calls a year.

Maybe the customer happened to find you in Google, or a happy client gave them your name. But have you ever wished you could get a steady stream of those phone calls?

Well that’s what direct response marketing is for.

That kind of targeted outreach is what gives you the ability to command a stream of inquiries, almost on demand.

Of course, it takes a bit of testing to find a promotional piece that drives sales for you.

But once you’ve mastered that kind of marketing, bringing in new business is just a matter of finding the right list of people - people interested in markets related to yours - and then sending a letter or postcard to them.

If you're a caterer, maybe that’s people who rent chairs, or tents, or hire DJs. If you're a landscaper, maybe it's realtors, contractors, or pool maintenance companies.

Refining this sort of marketing strategy is one of the best investments you can make in your business.

Because there’s nothing better than the ability to generate new inquiries whenever you need them.

The real question then is what you do with them...

 

Mistake #4: You go straight for the sale

No one likes a bully. And no one likes a pushy salesman, either.

So why is it that most businesses push for a sale as soon as they get a potential customer in the door?

Even people who have embraced the wisdom of direct response marketing and lead generation tend to try to push their product as soon as someone clicks on their ad, calls the shop, joins the email list, or happens to stop by.

What ever happened to romance?

This sort of sales behavior is the fastest way to push a person away – even someone who was interested in what you have to offer.

Customers want to be charmed, and educated, and maybe even entertained a little.

So don't try to push a purchase right away. Offer them a buyer's guide, or a discount list, or even a helpful report (like this one!)

Anything that helps move them further through the buying process, while helping to establish you as an expert on the subject and turning you into their trusted advisor in the industry.

Then, and only then, should you start to escalate the conversation.

Pick up the phone and ask if they have any questions. Learn why they're looking for a service like yours, and what they hope to get out of the experience.

There's a popular process in the software industry called “customer development,” and it's important to remember that, in the 21st century, you're training cold prospects to become your customers.

You have to show them that they can trust you, teach them that you know how to help, and lead them through the best decision for their business.

That sort of bond can't be built overnight. That's why this next mistake is so damaging....

 

Mistake # 5: You don’t follow up enough

Did you know that the average prospect needs to see your marketing message at least seven times before they'll buy?

 It's true. In marketing circles, this is known as the Rule of Seven.

But new research suggests that as much as 80% of sales happen between the 5th and 12th contact between your business and prospective customers.

Now how many businesses can honestly say they follow up with their prospects 12 times? How many businesses even contact prospects 5 times?

Not many, and they're leaving the majority of their potential sales on the table.

And it's easy to understand – no one wants to make a dozen awkward phone calls to someone you're not even sure is interested.

But that excuse doesn't cut it when you look at the unprecedented opportunities the internet has created for automated marketing.

There's no reason anymore for your prospects to go ignored with the technology available to us today.

You can set up an email autoresponder, to educate them about your industry, send them special offers, and check in on their progress.

You can automate postcards to go out to them at set intervals after their first contact with you, to follow up on the quality of their first purchase, or encourage repeat business. (More on that in the next section...)

You can even schedule thank you's or birthday cards to get people to remind people about your business and make them an offer.

The bottom line is that most businesses are letting a whole lot of sales slip away because they don't understand what their customer wants from the sales process.

And if you think that's bad, most business owners don't know what a customer's really worth either....

 

Mistake # 6: You don’t know your LTV

Here's the three most important metrics every business needs to know:

• How many leads you're getting
• What percentage of them you convert into customers
• And, most importantly, what your average customer is worth to your business.

 And that's the real issue: most business owners don’t understand what client lifetime value is and what it means.

Once you know what a client is worth to you over the course of your relationship with them, you can start to reverse engineer how much money you can afford to spend to acquire new clients just like that and still make a profit.

That gives you the ability to outspend your competitors with confidence, and carefully evaluate the value of any new marketing channel that comes along.

It makes it simple: if the number of new customers you get from a campaign, multiplied by your customer's average LTV is greater than the cost of that marketing, you'll turn a profit from it eventually. If not, you can cut your losses early instead of doubling down and hoping it pays off on the back end.

Additionally, your client list is your company's most valuable asset. It’s the first place you should be looking for new revenue when you're trying to grow.

The hardest thing in business is winning a new customer, but selling more products and services to them is incrementally easier, because you've already proven yourself to that person.

Your customer list can also be your most promising source of qualified new leads – new prospects that come from referrals and endorsements are by far the hottest leads a business can get, because your existing customers have already done half the work for you.

They've sold the quality of your service, and your credibility, and all that's left for you to do is make a compelling offer.

Referrals just don't grow on trees, though, which leads us to the last – and possibly most damaging – marketing mistake that most businesses I talk to are making nowadays.

 

Mistake # 7: You think your work will speak for itself

Almost every business owner has engaged in this dangerous fantasy at one point or another, and it's the biggest thing I see killing small business today.

It's a nice idea: you've put your blood, sweat and tears into being the best at what you do.

It'd be great if you could go into work every day, do a bang-up job, treat your customers like gold, and watch the money pile up.

Unfortunately, though, that doesn't work anymore.

We don't live in small towns like we used to – the internet has created a global community, where customers can order products and services in an instant from halfway around the globe.

If you're going to carve out a living for yourself, and hopefully build a business that people will remember you for, you're going to have to get serious about taking your marketing into your own hands.

You can commit to it now and give yourself a headstart, or wait to play catch-up when a savvy competitor is eating your lunch.

Running a business without a growth strategy or marketing plan is like driving from New York to Los Angeles without a map. You need to start thinking with the end in mind.

What kind of life do you want to lead? How much revenue do you need to generate this year to make that possible?

And more specifically, how much revenue do you need this month?

Once you know that number, you can figure out how many clients you need. And once you know how many clients you need, you can figure out how much you have to advertise to get them.

Sitting around waiting for someone to pick up the phone is just gambling with your family's future. Too many of us ride the small business roll-a-coaster...busy one week, than wondering what the hell will happen the next.

That's no way to live, and it's no way to run a business.

You have to start thinking strategically about how many customers you need, and how you're going to get them.

So what should you do about it?

I don't mean to be negative, but frankly, this is serious business.

I hope I wasn't harsh, but it drives me crazy seeing so many business owners suffer through the same challenges when the answer is right in front of them.

You just have to reach out and take it.

I know, because I struggled with this too.

That's why there's not a doubt in my mind that, if you can reverse-engineer the mistakes in this report and stamp them out of your business, you can double or triple your revenues this year – some companies will even grow more.

Did you know that 90% percent of new businesses fail within the first five years they're in operation? At ten years, that number gets closer to 99% percent.

And here's the scariest part: those numbers were compiled before the global recession had even started. Who knows what the failure rate is like now?

But it's not all bad news: the internet and smart marketing have made it easier than ever before to reach your target market, and given smart business owners a fighting chance to make it big like their fathers and grandfathers did a generation ago.

These seven marketing mistakes are the biggest reasons I see small business owners go out of business, and they're 100% preventable.

I don't want that to happen to you.

 

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