Top 5 Marketing Mistakes Business Owners Make

By Sandra Xenakis

A wonderful cook starts a catering company, investing thousands of dollars in stainless steel kitchen equipment and papering the city with fliers. Few clients materialize. What he really needs is a professional writer. He also needs a marketing plan.

A nurse starts an alternative health care clinic. Her time is limited by a long commute and caring for her family. The clinic has a low profile in the community. It closes within a year for lack of patients.

The former vice-president of a Fortune 1000 company starts his own consulting practice, investing in advertising, client lists and an expensive direct mail campaign, targeting the same customer base from his old company. The results are few inquiries and no paying clients. He starts looking for another corporate job.

A public relations executive starts her own PR agency with no clients and employs an inexperienced staff that works tirelessly on a variety of projects without much real focus. Miraculously, she obtains clients, office space and financing, part of which goes toward new workstations. Three years later, facing high staff turnover and some non-paying clients, the business folds.

All of these business owners were highly skilled at their professions. So why did they fail? They all made most—if not all—of the Top 5 Marketing Mistakes business owners make:

1. No mission and vision

2. Inconsistent marketing efforts

3. Focus on the wrong market

4. Lack of commitment in time and resources

5. Little or no monitoring of results

1. No mission and vision

Without a well-thoughtout plan and realistic expectations, any business will eventually fail.

Lack of a clearly defined mission and vision is a foundational issue shared by numerous business owners. Without a well-thought-out plan and realistic expectations, any business will eventually fail. But mission and vision go far beyond the business plan. Even the business plan needs a solid base, grounded in reality.

What good is a mission statement?

What good is a mission statement? Your mission is your statement of purpose, your compass, the reason why you're in business. It gets you up in the morning and keeps you going. A good mission statement resonates with your personal values and reflects your deepest beliefs, passions, energy and commitment. People who know you well look at your company's mission statement and say, "Oh, that really sounds like you."

In contrast, your business vision describes—in detail—where your business is going. When you take a road trip, you don't arrive at your destination unless you know what the destination is. It's the same thing with your business. What will your business look like in five or ten years? Where is it located? What does it do? How many people work there? How are they dressed? Who buys your products or services? Who is your competition? What makes you different? What resources do you allocate for research, operations, marketing? Where do clients hear of you?

Don't worry about being pinned down by too detailed a vision. Your business vision will change often as the business evolves. You need to start somewhere or you won't get anywhere!

You might be too busy today, but what about next month when your current clients end their contracts and your business hasn't generated new leads to follow up?

2. Inconsistent marketing efforts

Most business owners are painfully aware of the feast-and-famine cycle. However, there are many things you can do to smooth out the speed bumps in your cash flow. One way is to market consistently. Create a marketing plan and follow it religiously, even when you and your staff are "too busy" serving customers. You might be too busy today, but what about next month when your current clients end their contracts and your business hasn't generated new leads to follow up? You need to keep your marketing pipeline filled every step of the way.

You also need to use a lot of different methods to market your business, as they reinforce each other. If you're feeling antisocial, stay in the office and write newsletters, emails or magazine articles to publicize your business. When you’re tired of sitting behind the computer, get out and network or volunteer to speak at a professional meeting. If you have a staff, make sure you assign marketing to someone who's good at it, meet with them often and hold them accountable for results.

3. Focus on the wrong market

Several of our hapless owners above shared this common trait. Former corporate executives sometimes make the mistake of targeting the same clients they served in the past. When you leave a large corporation, it may be awkward or impossible for long-term clients to follow you to the new company. If you are a corporate-executive-turned-consultant, try to develop a consulting or subcontracting relationship with your former employer. Or contact your former corporate colleagues and ask them to refer clients they don't take.

Contact your former corporate colleagues and ask them to refer clients they don't take.

This brings us to the client profile: you will need a clear, highly detailed profile of your preferred client. You can't possibly reach your market if you don't know who they are. Try to focus here—"everyone" is not your client. Think niche marketing. Think target group. Who will benefit most from your product or service? Who do you like working with? The customers you enjoy are probably the most profitable and the least wasteful of your company's time and resources.

4. Lack of commitment in time and resources

How committed are you to the success of your business? Many people start their businesses part-time while holding down lucrative, full-time jobs. This is a great way to start--but you must have the cooperation of your family, and be willing to work long hours. You also need a plan to eventually transition to the new company full time as it expands. This won't happen naturally; you have to plan for it and make it happen.

Another common situation is lack of a concrete marketing plan—even among relatively successful companies who have been in business for more than a decade. There comes a day when word-of-mouth and hit-and-miss marketing don't work any longer. All business owners now face stiffer competition and a changing marketplace. To remain competitive, you must:

• Designate a budget for marketing (5% or more of annual sales)
• Assign time and/or staff to marketing
• Hire expert help, if necessary
• Write down your plan and follow through on it, day in and day out

5. Little or no monitoring of results

You can do everything else, but if you don't monitor results you can waste extraordinary amounts of time and money.

This one is a killer! You can do everything else, but if you don't monitor results you can waste extraordinary amounts of time and money. Take our caterer: he had no idea where his current clients came from, or why prospective clients were staying away in droves. He needed to perform basic research to find out how prospects heard of his services and what impression they had of his company. He would have discovered that grammatical errors on his web site were costing him business.

You don't have to hire an expensive survey research firm to get useful information. Call trusted clients and ask questions. Create a simple, written form new clients fill out, or analyze your sales figures. Make monitoring results an integral part of your marketing program. The sooner you look at what works and what doesn't, the sooner you can cut your losses and increase your profits.

Which of the Top 5 Marketing Mistakes are you guilty of? Better yet—now that you know what they are—how can you avoid them and start building a new, wildly successful marketing program for your business?

Sandra Xenakis is a marketing coach with Rx Coaching, which coaches business owners to become their own marketing experts. She can be reached at xenakis1@earthlink.net or 734-475-0193. Copyright 2003 by Rx Coaching.