99 Marketing Mistakes

(And How to Avoid Them)

Kenyon Blunt

• Publisher: Yorkshire Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781952320149
• eBook ISBN: 9781952320316
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Digital Marketing
• Index: Business

Why do you need 99 Marketing Mistakes?99 Marketing Mistakes is not another "how-to" book on digital marketing. It's born from from actual marketing mistakes that happen to small business owners. As we know, the point isn't to realize that you're screwing up; the point is to do something about it.The Top 10 Marketing Challenges of Small Business Owners: Kenyon surveyed small business owners, and here are the top 10 marketing challenges: 1. How do you get the most bang for your marketing bucks? (mistake #23)2. How do you market with a small budget? (mistake #2)3. What is the best channel for marketing a small business? (mistakes #48, 53 and 81)4. How do you generate high-quality leads? (mistakes #58 and 59)5. Who is your target customer? (mistake #4)6. Is name recognition and branding more important than leads?7. How do you carve out enough time to do marketing? (mistake #76)8. How can you make digital marketing more effective? (mistake #81)9. Where are you wasting money? (mistake #52)10. Why aren't small businesses more consistent? (mistake #34)

PART 6

DIGITAL MISTAKES

Mistake #81

Not Having A Digital Strategy

You probably have a good idea by now that digital channels are especially critical for acquiring and retaining customers. Why is it that so few small businesses are using them? I believe it’s because they don’t have an integrated plan and, instead, do seat-of-the-pants marketing, which sometimes works but often doesn’t.

I outlined in mistake #1 why it’s essential to have a marketing plan. And, you can correctly point out that a digital strategy is just part of this overall plan. Ideally, digital channels integrate into your overall marketing plan. Or, you can define them in a separate document for digital-only communications. Either way is better than doing no plan at all (which is sadly the case for most small businesses).

There are many challenges facing business owners in crafting a digital plan. The reason I’ve broken digital out separately is that it’s the most challenging part for many small business owners because of their limited expertise. It’s even more difficult because digital marketing is continually changing. Despite these challenges, you need to do it.

Why You Need a Digital Strategy

Small businesses think they don’t have the time or the money to be competitive online. There are many excuses for avoiding this type of marketing, but it’s still avoiding the inevitable. There are several compelling reasons why you need a digital strategy:

• You’re directionless without one. One of two things will happen if you don’t have a digital strategy: 1) you’ll take a haphazard approach and only market when you have the time and money or 2) you’ll not do any marketing at all.
• Your customers are demanding digital interactions. Your customers are already online. If a potential customer can’t find you online, there’s a good chance they’ll go elsewhere. Think of digital marketing as a way to make customers come to you.
• Your competitors are marketing online. They’ll eat your lunch if you’re not selling online. Take a look at what they’re doing and figure out what will work in your business.
• Digital marketing reduces your cost. Few things are as cost-effective as digital marketing. It allows you to get as much as possible from a smaller budget. When integrated with traditional forms of advertising, you’ll get an even bigger bang for your bucks.
• It’s measurable. Digital marketing is the “most measurable medium ever.” Once you get the basics right and find a few strategies that are working, you can progress using small, iterative campaigns.
• It’s fast. Today’s marketing has to change quickly. Digital marketing is about 64five times faster than with traditional marketing.
• You’ll have a learning advantage. If you’re better than your competitors at digital marketing, you’ll be able to get insights and find out what’s working faster than they can.

Develop a Digital Plan

Many entrepreneurs think that digital marketing and online advertising are the same things. In reality, advertising is just one component of your plan. There are two critical components to a digital plan: goals and strategies.

Goals

Instead of jumping right in and trying a few digital campaigns, think about what your goals are. Build your strategy around what your customers want. You should set goals for the following:

• Awareness. Sometimes you just want customers to know that you’re around. It’s more of a long-term strategy, but it’s a crucial step in promoting a product or service.
• Client conversion. Client conversion is selling more to your existing customers. What additional products do you want to sell to people who’ve purchased in the past?
• Customer retention. Set a goal for how many customers you want to retain over some specified period. See mistake #50 for more information.

Digital Strategies

Digital strategies can be broken down into three categories: earned, owned, and paid.

1. The traffic you control. The traffic you control is digital advertising, plain and simple. (e.g., pay per click advertising). You control who sees your ads and where the traffic is coming from.
2. The traffic you don’t control. It’s traffic that comes to you, and you don’t know from where. Examples include, SEO, social media, and mentions of your business online or through reviews.
3. The traffic you own. The traffic you own means your customer database. You own the name when the customer leaves it on your site, or you collect it through other means. Your goal is to own as much of your traffic as possible.

Some strategies intersect these groupings. For example, search engine optimization and content marketing drive earned media and owned media. Influencer marketing is paid advertising but also earned media.

You can put the goals and strategies into a quarterly digital plan. If you’d like my template, feel free to 65download it here. Keep in mind, my program is for digital and traditional marketing together versus having two separate plans.

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64 https://www.bcg.com/digital-bcg/digital-transformation/overview.aspx

65 https://kenyonblunt.com/elementor-1131/

Mistake #82

Not Building Your Database

In mistake #81, I discussed the need for developing a digital marketing strategy. Your primary objective is to own as much of ...

Table of contents

• Foreword – David Meerman Scott
• What is a Monograph?
• Introduction
• ERRORS OF OMISSION
• SPENDING MONEY ON THE WRONG THINGS
• SCREWING UP
• WRONG STRATEGIES
• YOU
• DIGITAL MISTAKES