The Ideas Blog

By Jim Connolly
Would you like to know some of the most common marketing mistakes made by small and medium-sized businesses - so you can avoid them?

I own and run a marketing business, with clients all over the world and a newsletter that’s read by many thousands more business owners and salespeople.  Because of this, I get hundreds of emails a week from my readers; which highlight marketing mistakes that are KILLING their businesses - here’s the first culprit for you to avoid!

THE FEAR OF INVESTING IN MARKETING!

THE FEAR OF INVESTING IN MARKETING EXPLAINED!

The single most common reason that businesses fail to make the sales they need in order to grow (or even survive), is that they fear investing in their marketing!  They are happy to moan about their poor sales and low profits, but will point-blank refuse to get the problem fixed; preferring to tread water until they retire or go broke.

FOR EXAMPLE

They will invest in a mailshot, but insist on copy writing the mailing letter themselves; all-but guaranteeing that it fails.  Copy writing is a specialist business activity.  The ability to motivate someone to open and then read a mailing AND THEN take action (call you, email you, buy from you) is something that very few people can do.  Why would a business ruin their chances of success by opting for DIY copy writing?  Because it’s CHEAPER than getting the letter written by a proven expert!

‘Do it yourself’ and it costs nothing - BUT pay an expert to market your business and you have an additional cost!  Now, as we know, the marketing a proven expert provides can generate a two or three thousand percent increase in someone’s results and transform their sales - but that’s not what these business owners focus on.  They focus exclusively on the cost of the experts services.

Most small businesses, for example, will invest in having a website built; but REFUSE to pay a few hundred pounds / dollars to have that site Search Engine Optimized.  End result?  The site might as well not be there - because it’s invisible and gets no search engine traffic!  Why?  Because it’s CHEAPER than paying someone to optimize the website!

I have recently seen a website go from generating nothing, to generating enquiries on a daily (almost hourly) basis - after being Search Engine Optimized and marketed correctly.  The cost was tiny, yet the payback was WORTH SIX FIGURES IN NEW BUSINESS to the sites owner!

WHY THEY ALWAYS STRUGGLE

This fear-based approach to sales and marketing is not only extremely common in small businesses; sadly, it’s pretty-much the norm!  The fear of loss is so great in some people, that it literally scares them into failure.  They will work hard and offer a great service and then suffer, as they watch their professionally marketed competitors achieve great success, whilst they spin-their-wheels year after year.

RACHAEL’S STORY

I recently met a business owner, whose business was really struggling.  In fact, she said that if she had been working for someone else over the past 5 years, rather than for herself, she would have made far more money and worked far fewer hours!  She went on to explain that she knew nothing about sales or marketing - and that she ‘could not afford to have her business marketed by a professional’.  I asked her what kind of fees she had been quoted by marketing consultants.

She replied; “Oh, nothing - I have not bothered getting quotes.  You don’t have to, I mean, it’s just really expensive isn’t it!” Not as expensive as losing her business; which sadly happened to her earlier this week and prompted me to write this blog post!

Hard work and long hours are not enough to succeed!  If hard work and long hours were the secret of success, our grand parents would all have been millionaires! The quality of your products or services have to be matched by the quality of your marketing if you want to succeed and start making some REAL money.