First time startup owners are usually professionals in the field of their product and/or service. However, they are likely beginners in marketing their product or service. To achieve your marketing goals of growing your business, you need to avoid making the following four mistakes.
Entering the market without research. Many first time entrepreneurs fail to properly identify their industry, competitors and target market because their market understanding is based on passionate guesses rather than informative research. It is necessary to collect data and factual information that supports your strategic decisions. You need to research your industry, competition and target marker in order to create an effective marketing strategy.
Spending heavily to get new customers. The most direct way to generate sales is to get new customers. However, the cost of getting new customers can be very expensive. You may be able to persuade existing customers to purchase more of your product/service or with a higher markup by utilizing those marketing dollars to offer more value to existing customers.
Ignoring online marketing. Online marketing is playing a more and more important role in small businesses. It provides cost-effective marketing methods that are wide-reaching, readily available and easily measurable. If you spend a lot of money renting ads in newspapers, you probably need to explore different online marketing tools.
Neglecting to measure marketing metrics. Results and feedback are crucial to measuring the success of your marketing strategy. By developing and tracking your marketing metrics, you are able to continually adjust and revise this strategy to improve the yield of your marketing dollars.
First time entrepreneurs should have a marketing plan or business plan that is tailored to his/her business before they launch. When running their businesses, they should continually look back at their plan, checking their strategies and revising them according to their metrics. Developing a system for tracking their metrics and adjusting their strategies will allow entrepreneurs to become experienced marketers in addition to already being experts in their field.
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