When it comes to small business marketing, most people make the mistake of confusing advertising alone with marketing. And while advertising certainly is a part of marketing, it’s not all of it. Big business understands this, yet they don’t always do it correctly either.

Marketing starts with the customer, the target market. In order to put the odds in your favor when it comes to having a successful ad, you must first understand who you are marketing to and what problem they have that your product or service can solve. Once you know this, only then you can begin to craft a marketing message that will have the best chance of connecting with your market. The fact is that your market does not care at all about you or your company. They only care about how you or your company can help them.

If entrepreneurs and small business owners do not market themselves, chances are they won’t be in business for long.  Here are 6 common mistakes business owners may overlook or struggle with when marketing themselves:

1. Thinking that one ‘touch’ will always garner results.  I have recently been in conversations with a business owner who runs a workshop, and after one mailing to roughly 300 people he believes direct mail doesn’t work because there was only a couple responses.  I have been trying to help him understand that his first mailing didn’t even cause a blip in the brains of those who even saw it.  I encouraged him to narrow his mailing list and to “mail the heck out of them.” (I think that’s roughly the language I used).
2. Thinking that one kind of marketing is going to do the trick.  Today, there are so many different options and avenues for a marketing approach, we need to consider all of them and determine how they can work together.  Direct mail, email, articles that draw people to our websites, social media, face-to-face, ‘stuf’, word of mouth…it’s ALL important and very few entrepreneurs can go with only one type.
3. Not understanding that you need to build your ‘list’.  If you only have 6 people or so to whom you are marketing to, they had better be pretty darn responsive or you’ll starve!  Building a list through opt-in methods is the way to go and it’s part of why it’s smart to offer products (digital, for example) for free.  People come to your website, find what you offer to be helpful, download it, take the tele-seminar (or whatever), and if they like what they receive, they “hang our” for awhile.  They hope is that they will continue accessing some other products or services.  Someday…they’ll buy…or at least that’s the idea.  You are running a business, and if nobody buys, you’re not going to be in business for long
4. Not budgeting time to do all the marketing activities that need to be done.  When it comes down to it, Marketing IS Selling.  And as the owner of your business, you’re the subject matter expert and should be the one selling (in this case marketing) it to potential new customers.  It’s extremely short-sighted to say you don’t have time to market.  If you don’t MAKE time to market, you’ll soon have nothing but time because you’ll be out of business.  Remember, you do not have to do it all yourself.  Tap into the expertise that is out there allowing you to concentrate on growing the business.  Assuming you’re not in the startup stage, at least 80% of your time should in some way be spent selling to new customers.  Don’t get caught up doing the busy work if at all possible.
5. Not paying attention to marketing intervals and frequency.  For any channel (i.e. direct mail, text message blast, social media etc.), if you send out something 15 times but over 15 years, you won’t have much – ney, any – impact. Your marketing needs to be frequent but also done within a short enough time frame that people remember and think, ‘oh, yeah I think I’ve seen this person/service/business before’.
6. Not realizing that you are either going to spend money or time, but most likely both.  You can’t market without some form of investment of your capital – either $ or time.  Target your message and your efforts so you don’t dilute your impact.

See if you are making any of these mistakes – and if you are, take steps this week to start correcting them.  It will be perilous to your business if you don’t.