What’s the number one marketing mistake made by small business people today?
Continuing my mad assault on the Biznik blog (I could be working, but this is more fun) is this little nugget gleaned from “The Top Ten Marketing Mistakes Made By Small Businesses And What to Do About Them” class (quite possibly coming soon to a city near you.)
So, what’s the number one marketing mistake made by small businesses?
Thinking that MARKETING and ADVERTISING are the same thing.
When you first hang out your shingle, you probably got leapt upon by hungry ad salesmen like a fresh young elk in a cage full of lions.
“You’ve got to get your name out there!” they growled at you. “We’ll grow your business by leaps and bounds!!” they said with a snarl.
And then you looked down and realized they were gnawing on your leg with big sharp teeth and that you probably wouldn’t be bounding anywhere.
Do me a favor
Take out a piece of white paper and draw a big, big circle that takes up just about the whole page. Now label the circle “Marketing.”
Now over in the right corner of that circle, draw a much, much smaller circle and label it “Advertising.”
We just made something called a Ven diagram. And what that diagram is telling us is this:
Advertising is always Marketing
But marketing is not always advertising.
In fact advertising–interruption ads that leap out from newspapers, bombard your eyes on the interweb or interrupt Lost right when something good is going to happen–is just a small, small part of Marketing.
And an expensive and, for most smaller businesses, utterly ineffective part at that.
So, what fills up all that empty space in the marketing universe?
Glad you asked. All sorts of stuff. Stuff like blogging, newsletter writing, podcasting, word of mouth marketing, internet marketing (no, I don’t mean banner ads), Direct Response Marketing and, of course, hiring a guy in a banana suit to dance outside your shop.
Wait, not that last part.
Now, I spend my days working with clients as a marketing consultant and copywriter. Which means I sell stuff with words.
And it’s the rarest thing in the world that I tell a small business to open up the piggy bank and spring for a print, radio or TV ad.
Because it’s expensive.
Because it’s usually untargeted.
And because the last thing you want to do is feed the lions.
Later
Chris Haddad
Haddad Ink.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:32 pm
The number one marketing mistake is actually letting marketing be the missing piece. Small business doesn’t market, in any meaningful sense of the word. That’s why wonks like you and me are always making these top 10 lists. Our real challenge is not to make lists, but to forge tools, and hand them over. And show them how to use them.
So, what’s your *favorite tool* that you can hand to a small business and show them how to use? One they can afford, and cut a swath with?
November 1st, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Oh, that one’s easy.:
Niching. It’s a tough one for most folks to swallow, but if someone can grab onto a niche and address it aggressively, it’ll show in their business pretty much right away.