6 Deadly Marketing Mistakes

Deadly Marketing Mistake #1: Failure to Make Marketing the Top Priority

Being good at what you do or having an exceptional product is not good enough! You may not like to read this, but it is a fundamental truth that will transform you and your business into an income generating machine:

It's NOT how much you know about running your business, or the equipment you use or the product choices you make that determines your income! It's all on how effective you are at marketing yourself and your business that builds the balance in your account.

Now, you can fight this truth or you can accept it and embrace it as an opportunity to take the necessary steps to marketing your business effectively.

If you cannot effectively attract a steady stream of new business and keep the customers you already have your business will die a slow, painful death. The unhappy fact is that you can be the absolute best at what you do, but still starve to death!

Marketing is the single most important function in your business. You need great marketing to protect your customers from poachers and keep new work coming in.

If you truly believed your number one duty as a business owner is to market your business, would your daily agenda change? Think about this: How much of your time are you devoting to high value marketing activities? Here are some activities that you should consider:

* Attend business conference to network
* Study the competitors marketing strategies
* Write a newsletter to promote a product or service

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Deadly Marketing Mistake #2: Ineffective Advertising

95% of all the ads that I see are all the same. They focus on the company and not on the reader. You have to realize every decision people make is based on emotion and then justified with logic. It doesn't matter if they're rich or poor, young or old. People respond to self-serving emotional appeals and they always will.

You need to understand that people only care about one thing: "What's in it for me?!" They don't really care about you or your company. What really sell potential customers on your product/service are the benefits you can provide to them. The better you can show customers the advantages they will see for themselves, the more likely you are to get their business.

This is very important and once realized, you're miles ahead of your competitors. Once you can give your customers what they want in your advertising, they are much more likely to buy from YOU.

Here's a big secret to making ads pay: Every ad must have a powerful headline to reach its maximum potential! The headline needs to grab the readers attention and shout to them, "Hey, this is for you!"

All people care about is what's in it for them, what advantage or self-serving benefit can you offer them. The headline needs to communicate that advantage or else they will never know.

Review your competitor's ads and pay attention to the headline. You will see that most who advertise think their business name is the biggest benefit to customers, which is just crazy!

By following this one simple tip you could easily get up to 10 times more customers responding to your ads.

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Deadly Marketing Mistake #3: Failing To Make Doing Business with You Easy & Convenient

You have to be a fanatic about impressing your customers with your eagerness to service and satisfy their wants and needs.

When people decide to contact you it is because you have become the most important thought in their mind at that very moment. The sooner you can respond the better your chances of getting their business.

Do everything within your power to make doing business with your company as easy as possible. Even though it may be inconvenient for you at times, your willingness to do so will payoff.

Most businesses rarely take the time to realize what their customers want. By making it simple to do business with you, you will attract many more customers. Take a few minutes and ask yourself these questions:

* Do I provide information in a friendly manner even if it may not result in an immediate sale?
* When a customer contacts my business, do they receive the information in timely manner?
* Do I consistently communicate with my customers?

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Deadly Marketing Mistake #4: No Formal Referral System

Many companies rely on referrals for 40%-75% of their business; unfortunately, most companies give little thought to having a system in place to track and control referrals. Do you have a formalized referral system in place?

The best part about referrals is how these customers are typically predisposed to you. They usually want higher-priced services and typically refer even more business to you.

In order to increase referrals you need a formal system; a way to drive customers to provide you their business associates names and addresses, and just as important, a systematic way to drive these referrals to do business with you.

There are two groups you should consistently ask for referrals:
1. Customers
2. Circles of Influence

Make sure to develop a system for obtaining referrals first from your customers and secondly from 'Circles of Influence'. One of the easiest ways to ask for referrals from your customers is to write a letter asking them for their help.

The second group that you should generate referrals from is your "circles of influence". Your circles of influence should be broken into two subcategories: Tier A and Tier B.

Tier A "circles of influence" are those who have a connection to the same people that you service. These are NOT your competitors, but people who provide complimentary products or services to your customers. Let's say you own a Roofing business and that's all you do. Your Tier A could be building supply owners, plumbing contractors or HVAC Contractors.

The objective with your Tier A is to have your business be the first thing that comes to their mind when someone mentions the "word". Think about some ways that you can be proactive and begin to strategically place yourself in the minds of your potential Tier A. Here are some ideas to get you going:

1. Email them an interesting article that might help their business.

2. Think about any of your clients that maybe in need of their services and send referrals their way.

Tier B "circles of influence" are the people that you come into contact with on a regular basis, but who is not necessarily interacting with your potential customers regularly, such as friends and neighbors.

You need to make a point of letting these people know exactly what you do and that referrals are a significant part of your business. A great way to drive referrals from your Tier B is to have a quarterly open house. It's a great opportunity to showcase your business with a simple presentation and stress the importance of referrals to the growth of your business.

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Deadly Marketing Mistake #5: Not Communicating with Current or Past Customers

Your most profitable assets are your current and former customers. Everybody is so busy trying to drum up new customers they neglect what they already have.

The fastest way to developing significant growth in your business is consistently going after your current and past customers. They trust you, have faith in you and they are predisposed to buying from you again. It makes sense to actively market to your current customers because it's crazy expensive to get new business! The cost of reaching your existing customers is almost nothing.

You have to continually follow-up with your customer base using promotional advertising, newsletters, and special events. It needs to be self-serving and full of benefits for them. It has to lead them to making the only logical decision that they could possibly make, which is to use more and more of YOUR services.

Here are some ideas for communicating with your current and past customers:
* Newsletters
* Promotional Products
* Informative Resources

The method used should include offers for new or additional services. Most businesses could double their sales by simply staying in frequent contact with their customers.

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Deadly Marketing Mistake #6: Not Having a Unique Selling Proposition

A Unique Selling Proposition is a statement that explains the special attributes of your business and how YOU can provide greater value to them compared to any of your competitors.

Make sure your Unique Selling Proposition answers the following question for the potential customer: "Why should I do business with you instead of your competitor?" Competition is fierce and it is extremely difficult to differentiate one company from another.

IF a company is able to differentiate themselves from their competitors, they definitely have an advantage in attracting customers. What you must do is somehow create a way to separate yourself from your competition.

How do you decide what your Unique Selling Proposition should be? Well, you need to determine what will really make your company stand out from among the rest of your competitors.

Whatever it might be, you need to make sure that your USP comes through in absolutely everything that you do. The key to developing an effective USP is to make sure to answer your potential customer's wants and needs and be sure to use it in all of your marketing and in your everyday conversations.

With this idea in mind you can completely dominate your market if you hit an opportunity gap!

Promo ideas that work!