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Small Business Marketing Resources: Don't Waste Yours

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Written by Linda P. Morton

Tuesday, 29 April 2008

by LindaP.Morton

Poor small business marketing is one of the major causes of early small business failure. Poor small business marketing not only fails to get new and loyal customers, it also wastes small business marketing resources. Three major reasons account for this waste.

1. Failing to conduct small business marketing research.

2. Not identifying the people most inclined to buy your products or services.

3. Failing to create a small business marketing plan to guide your business.

Small Business Marketing Mistake 1: Not Utilizing Small Business Marketing Research.

You may be wasting your small business marketing resources if you are not researching your product, competition and market. The few resources that you'll save by not doing this research, will cost you much more in wasted marketing and lost sales.

Without the information acquired from research, small business marketing is built on incomplete and inaccurate information. This dooms marketing efforts from the beginning.

If you fail to do this research, your marketing plan will lack focus because you won't have a clear marketing goal, won't know how to select the best marketing objectives to reach that goal, and won't know the best appeals for your target market.

Every penny that you spend on good research is money well spent. This is particularly true for research to determine your best potential customers, and the best way to market to them. Failing to acquire this information is the second major way that you, as a small business owner, may be wasting marketing resources.

Small Business Marketing Mistake 2: Not Identifying The People Most Inclined To Buy Your Products Or Services.

Business owners who don't do research often don't know the best target market for their products and services. Because they don't determine who is most likely to buy their products, they market to everybody, and often don't sell much to anybody. This type of small business marketing wastes marketing resources.

If you think everybody will want to buy your products or services, you are just plain wrong, and you're wasting marketing resources. If you instead take time to identify the people who really need and want what you sell, your marketing efforts will be far more effective.

Spending a small amount of resources on target market research can save small business owners much more in wasted marketing efforts and expenses than the research costs.

With target market research, you'll also be able to:

identify your target market,

discover the best appeals for this target market, and

assure that your marketing plan includes at least seven tactics to reach your target market annually.

By conducting target market research, you'll discover much about:

the members of your target market,

the media to use to distribute your marketing messages,

what they want to know, and how to deliver that information through your marketing messages.

how much spending power they have and what price they will pay.

If you know this information and plan marketing campaigns with it, you'll improve return on investment and avoid wasting your small business marketing resources.

Small Business Marketing Mistake 3: Not Creating And Following A Small Business Marketing Plan

The third mistake is a result of the first two mistakes. Until you have done research on your product, competition and target market, you can't plan the best way to spend your small business marketing resources. When you haven't planned how to best spend your marketing resources, you can be persuaded to spend ineffectively.

Some small business owners believe that the only reason to complete a business plan is because banks require them for business loans. They fail to recognize the value of a business plan to guide their business, much less a marketing plan to guide their marketing.

If you don't predetermine your marketing strategies and tactics, you may be tempted to buy into every marketing and advertising sales pitch. You, not external sales people, must be in charge of your small business marketing plan.

You need to have your marketing goals in place and make every marketing decision based on your goals. Otherwise you may fall victim to sales people who are more concerned with their sales goals than your marketing goals.

Some mass media sales people approach new business owners, convincing them to buy advertisements that primarily reach the wrong people, and sometimes reach few people because of the time or placement of the advertisement.

Likewise, without a marketing plan, you may be persuaded to buy marketing services and products that aren't right for your target market. Every penny that you spend on effective marketing is a penny that you no longer have to spend on effective marketing.

About the Author:

To avoid these and similar major small business marketing mistakes go to http://strategicmarketsegmentation.com/blog/market-segmentation-for-small-business-marketing/. To improve you marketing you can get a free report: at "Marketing Your Small Business". Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory