Small business marketers don’t have a cushion to fall back on compared to larger businesses. The resources are small and time is short. One mistake can have a big impact.
To help you avoid the expenses and lost time that these mistakes can cause, here are four common pitfalls that small business marketers make so you can avoid setting yourself up for defeat.
Not using your product packaging to market your product
Your product packaging does far more for your business than just contain your product. It makes your product stand apart from others on the shelf, gets consumers to take a look at it when they might have otherwise walked by, and gets consumers to even share photos of the product.
Up to 74% of young adults are more likely to share photos of product packaging if they placed their order online. That being said, before you sell your product, consider hiring a professional graphic designer to develop your product packaging before putting your products out for sale.
Not using what you already have
One of the benefits of the vegan eating trend is that certain wineries have been able to market their products simply by putting the truth of their ingredients on the label. While that might seem surprising, a study by the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University found that food labels result in a cutback in healthy food options by 13%.
If your products are unique in the type of ingredients or materials you use, consider putting that information in bigger writing on the packaging. It’ll make a bigger difference than you think.
Relying on trade shows to market your products
It’s true that trade shows are a great way to get your business out there and to make your products known to a wider audience. But 39% of event planners said that their biggest challenge is escalating trade show costs and budget/resource management.
Considering the average cost to start a business is $30,000 and the average U.S. household has credit card debt of $8,8284, you want to avoid escalating marketing costs as much as possible.
Not tracking your results
If you’re not tracking your marketing results, then you don’t know what works best for your business. The result is that you end up throwing your money away.
It’s vital to track foot traffic from big sales, goals on your website with Google Analytics, conversions through your pay per click ads, and more.
You can and will make mistakes in marketing. But, if you’re not tracking your results, then you won’t learn from these mistakes. You might not even know you’ve made a mistake.
Small business marketers only have so much time and so many resources to rely on to get the word out about their products. If vaccines can prevent almost 2.5 million deaths annually, you can avoid a few small marketing mistakes! By avoiding the mistakes above, you can sidestep some of the most common small business marketing pitfalls and be more aware of when you begin to make the same mistakes.
