Marketing Mistakes That Successful Business Owners Don’t Make

You’ve finally got your business started- whatever that looks like.

Be it a brick-and-mortar that has been renovated and styled, a website that’s up and running, or even an Etsy shop with some listings on it.

You’ve put in all the upfront work and you’re ready to start making money doing what you love, but so far all you’ve heard are….. crickets.

No website traffic, very little social media engagement, DEFINITELY no sales. Does that sound like you?

If so, read this post today because we’re sharing the top 3 marketing mistakes business owners make that lead to ZERO sales.

Top 3 Marketing Mistakes You Make That Lead To Zero Sales

Mistake #1: You don’t start tracking things now.

You might be thinking, “What’s there to track?! We don’t have customers, that’s why I’m reading this post!”

We get it! But any data is better than no data.

Even if you’re just getting a few clicks here and there or a couple of followers, you want to have all of your tracking pixels and analytics set up now.

So that when you DO start getting waves of traffic and customers, you’ll have data all the way from the very beginning.

Because what do we always say on this blog? Informed decisions lead to what? Big results. And you can’t make informed decisions without data.

So you’ll want to get your Facebook tracking pixel installed (now called the Meta pixel), your Google tags installed and your Google Analytics set up.

Mistake #2: Trying to do everything at once.

Pick a marketing lane and work at it.

We know when you are first marketing your business, you’re like…

“I gotta get my brand on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and now Threads and should we start posting TikToks?

Or just stick to Reels? What about Google Ads? How do I go about running those? And we should do behind the scenes on YouTube. And Facebook ads!”

Don’t make marketing mistakes like this. Slow down. We know it all sounds flashy and great, but you need to pick ONE platform to start with. Yes, one and we’ll tell you why.

You need to invest whatever limited resources you have into perfecting ONE platform instead of trying to half-heartedly juggle 3 or 4.

Doing the latter will drive zero results for you, or at the very least, unsustainable results.

Concentrating your efforts on getting profitable results from 1 platform before moving on to the next will get you what?

We gave you the answer to the question: profitable results!

Now if you don’t know WHICH platform to get started with, the short answer is the one where your target audience spends the most time.

The longer answer is to read this post about all the different social media platforms here.

This post will help you think about your business critically to determine where it makes the most sense for your business in particular to market.

Now the last thing we’ll mention here before we move on is that, this mistake in particular hinges on the fact that you probably don’t have a ton of employees just hanging around.

Or more specifically, experienced, professional marketer employees just hanging around. Most small businesses starting out don’t have the resources yet to hire a full team.

If you do, great. If you don’t, you can either do what we talked about and focus on one platform at a time.

Or, you can hire an affordable digital marketing agency to handle all of your marketing for you at a monthly rate.

If that sounds like something you’d like to get a quote for, you should know we do that for small businesses every day.

So get in touch with us today and you’ll get a free, custom marketing proposal and quote to go with it to see if we’d be a good fit for you.

Mistake #3: Making your marketing YOU-oriented instead of customer-oriented.

A lot of business owners know they have a great product or a wonderful, helpful service. And so, the first thing they wanna do is tell the world about how great it is!

But that’s one of the marketing mistakes you may be making and it’s the wrong way to go about it.

You may offer the greatest thing this world’s ever seen, but your audience is not going to care unless you show how it helps THEM.

Talking about your company, the awards you’ve won or your product features are NOT going to get your customer’s attention.

But addressing one of the problems they’re trying to solve or goals they’re trying to achieve will.

We’ve used this example before on our blog, but let’s say you sell dishwashers.

Which one of these marketing ads is going to get the customer’s attention?

“Our dishwasher has the latest cleaning gadget in it that wipes plates with the turbo cleaner 3000.”

Or, “You don’t have to rinse or half-clean your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher anymore.

Our dishwasher will have every dirty dish, no matter how thick and cakey, sparkling clean in one wash.”

The second option sounds better right?! Why? Because you’re addressing something the audience struggles with.

If you have to rinse your dishes in the sink every night, give them a little scrub before you put them in the dishwasher…

…and you hear an ad that right out of the gates addresses that problem and says you don’t have to do that anymore?

You’ve got their attention! They’re listening for the how, and the how, is your product.

The same principle can be applied to any product or service from any industry.

In these early stages, don’t waste the exposure you get talking about stuff the audience doesn’t care about.

Especially when you’re a newer business nobody has heard of yet. They don’t know or care if we’re being honest, who you are yet.

They just want to know if what you’re selling helps them or brings value to their life in some capacity.

Here are some more tips on how to market your new business.

So take a look at your current marketing efforts and ask yourself…

…are these centered around what I wanna hear about my brand, or are they centered around what the customer wants to hear and what’s valuable to them?

Looking at all of your marketing efforts through that lens…

…be it content, captions, videos, etc. will make a world of difference in the amount of traction, engagement you’re getting, and ultimately sales.