I am currently doing a few blogs that are dedicated to the mind-set marketing mistakes that are often made by business owners. Each mistake also includes a recommended fix that helps you attract more business and get better results from your marketing, regardless of how big or small your marketing budget is.

Here are the links to the last two blogs if you missed them and would like to check them out - Biggest Marketing Mistakes Every Business Owner Makes - Part 1 and Biggest Marketing Mistakes Every Business Owner Makes - Part 2. Today’s mistake is about your company’s image.

Mistake - You think you do not need to make an effort to stand out.
A bank is a bank is a bank. Realtors, lawyers and consultants are a dime a dozen. The list goes on. But there is good news: the more two businesses are similar, the more important each difference becomes, and the more impact even the tiniest difference will have on setting you apart. Why?

Consider identical twins. What do you do first when you meet a set? You try to find a little detail to tell them apart. The same is true for your business. Your prospects are looking for a point of difference they can use to set you apart from your competition.

I was at a networking event recently with three people from different banks and each one was able to emphasize a point that made their bank seem different from the other two. Each of those three differentiators works to draw in the right type of clients to each bank.

To find your points of difference, start with your points of contact, or ‘touch points’ in your company. Make a list. Business card, fax cover sheet, invoice, phone greeting, front door, home page, etc. Then look at what the competition does and ask yourself how you can do it differently. Just a little change can make a big difference, because your prospects are looking for those differentiators.

I still have a few more marketing mistakes and solutions up my sleeve so be sure to check back.

​Until next time...

Have a great day,
​Susanne

If you feel you are spinning your marketing wheels, join me for a Marketing strategy session.

For example, a Shelby Mustang automobile (description) has a lot of horsepower (attribute) that enables it to accelerate quickly and leave other cars in the dust (benefit). What a wonderful way to upstage less impressive car owners! (Connects to what an insecure person cares about.) Connect to what people want. Not to what you do.

Work on this exercise now and next time we will tackle another marketing mistake.

Until next time...

Have a great day,
​Susanne

If you feel you are spinning your marketing wheels, join me for a Marketing strategy session.

We have all let a typo slip by or printed the wrong contact information somewhere or possibly even spelled our business name wrong. Those are real-life marketing mistakes that are not worthy of an entire article. Just one word of how-to-fix-it advice is sufficient for those mistakes: proofread! (For the record, as diligent a I am, I have sent out materials only to discover the typo 10 minutes after it is too late.)

The next few blogs will be dedicated to the mind-set marketing mistakes that are often made by business owners. Each mistake will also include a recommended fix that will help you attract more business and get better results from your marketing, regardless of how big or small your marketing budget is.

Mistake - You think marketing is a task you ‘do’.
“I need to do more marketing.” It is the first thought that springs to mind when you need to boost business. The problem is, when you think of marketing as a task you ‘do’, you are usually thinking about publicity, direct mail, flyers, email, ads and promotion. Marketing is much more than merely promotion, and it is rarely a quick fix.

The real fix is to expand your definition of marketing. Instead of thinking of it as a task you ‘do’, think of marketing as an extension of your branding. Marketing is any variable that helps or hinders the sale or use of your product or service. This includes: your location, the attitudes of the person who answers the phone, your company name, pricing, policies, proposals, personality and more.

Before you write a promotional word, do a ‘help or hinder’ once-over. Make a list of what is helping you attract business and what is getting in the way. Figure out what obstacles you can quickly fix or remove. Obviously moving a physical store into a more desirable location is a long-term project, however bring in a customer service strategist to train your staff or restructuring your pricing can be done on fairly short notice.

What ‘helps’ can you enhance or spotlight? Until the help-or-hinder homework is done, working on promotion is premature.

Next time we will troubleshoot another common marketing mistake.

Until next time...

Have a great day,
Susanne

If you feel you are spinning your marketing wheels, join me for a Marketing strategy session.

I had a vendor booth at a library bazaar recently and it did not go as well as I hoped. I knew going in it would be questionable for me since my clients are business owners and undoubtedly most of the library patrons would not be business owners. 

It would only take a few of my ideal clients to wander by to make my time and small monetary investment worthwhile. Unfortunately for me none of those clients jumped up and said, "I want to sign up for training right now." My immediate income from the event was zero dollars. I lost money on the event.

Do I consider the event to be a failure? No. I had a few people sign up for my newsletter list and I was smiling when I added them all to my database. I made a couple of connections that may lead to income in the near future and I had a good time.

Will I take a chance on another "non-business" event? Probably, if it fits into my schedule. I am an eternal optimist. As a business owner it is important to focus on the positive outcomes and learn a lesson from the negative and immediately let those negative thoughts go.

I have decided to make Marketing in the Real World an ongoing series. If you have a real world marketing story, let me know and I may feature you in an upcoming blog or video. I am looking for your good, your bad and your ugly marketing stories.

The Good
A marketing venture you thought was probably a waste of your time but was a great boost for your business.

The Bad
A venture that did not go quite as well as you hoped.

The Ugly
A colossal bomb. You picked yourself up (or your circle helped you up), dusted yourself off and kept on your business path or you created a new fork because the real world slapped you in face and told you, “You are on the wrong path.”

Send your stories to [email protected]. Be sure to include your contact information.

Until next time...

Have a great day,
Susanne

Get on-call access to an expert for answers to your most pressing marketing concerns! Check out my Ask Me Anything coaching program!

In the last several posts we have reviewed some tips on how to stay on task to get your projects done. Click on Get Unstuck - Steps to Increase Your Productivity Part One, Get Unstuck - Steps to Increase Your Productivity Part Two, Get Unstuck - Steps to Increase Your Productivity Part Three and Get Unstuck - Steps to Increase Your Productivity Part Four if you missed the previous posts.

We are going to wrap up this series today with my last few tips.

Zoom, Zoom - As odd as it sounds, try to do your tasks faster. There is a reason I like Twitter more than Facebook. I can consume much more information in a shorter amount of time. Really concentrate on the task you are doing so you can type faster, read and comprehend faster, design faster and etcetera. Invest in software that quickens the pace of your everyday tasks.

Take a Real Pill - Do not be afraid to downsize your content marketing. Do you really need to post as much as you do? I know all the video “experts” say to post a YouTube video every week and someday I may, but right now I am launching a business and I would be stressed out and begin to dread the task if I tried to complete a video each week. I post a new video every other Friday and a couple of times I have had to push my posting back to three weeks between videos. I do not sweat it and I still love making informational videos. Review your content marketing schedule to see if you can cut back or outsource anywhere.

Get Off Facebook - or YouTube or your email or whatever is sucking your time that you are pretending is necessary to your business. (World Cup coverage is okay.) If you can not manage your social media accounts without being distracted by the latest cat videos over and over again scrounge up the money to outsource your social media. Go through your email and unsubscribe from most of the lists you are on. (Please keep me.)

I am sure there are many more ways to help you stay on task; however I am going to wrap it up here with these 15. If you have any questions about how to implement any of these tips, email me at [email protected] and I can help you get on track.

Until next time...

Have a great day,
Susanne

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