There’s a lot of marketing advice for small businesses telling us what we “should” be doing. And for every “you should do this!” there is probably another expert saying “oh no, you shouldn’t do that!”.

It’s confusing and annoying.

That said, I want to weigh in. Because over the past 7 years of helping small businesses with their marketing, these are the top mistakes I see them make (and I don’t want you to make them!).

By the way, this piece of writing first appeared in my weekly email. So if you like what you read, make sure you’re signed up!

OK, here's a short summary of the 5 big marketing mistakes small business owners make, and what to do instead. 

1️⃣ Doing marketing without setting business goals, or not aligning marketing activities with business goals.

The classic ‘spray and pray’ approach. It’s no good.

With limited time and energy, you want to make sure the marketing you do actually moves you closer to achieving your business goals.

So get clear on your business goal, then decide your marketing approaches/strategies that will get you there, and then let THAT inform your marketing goals and activities. 

2️⃣ Diluting your marketing efforts so you please everyone. 

You don't want to just be seen as "fine". You don’t want someone looking at a solution for their challenge to find you and go: "I suppose that'll do". Diluted, vanilla marketing will get you those results.

But is that what you want?

My guess is you want people to love you and the things you sell so much they'll go out of their way to buy from you.

By leaning into all the weird and wonderful things that make you YOU, you will attract your people and build a loyal base of people who actually buy and recommend your stuff!

3️⃣ Spreading yourself too thin.

You can't be on every marketing channel. Choose the places where your marketing will have the biggest impact on your business goals, and stick to them. Plan and batch your content ahead of time to maintain consistency without overwhelming yourself.

4️⃣ Ignoring your numbers.

If you avoid looking at your website/social/email analytics, you miss out on learning what's working and what isn't. Set aside time regularly to review and interpret your data, and understand which activities bring in the most leads and sales.

5️⃣ Believing marketing has to be painful.

A big one.

Seriously, marketing doesn't have to be just one of those business chores you have to suck up and do. It's an area of your business over which you actually have lots of control! No matter what the experts say, YOU get to choose.

It's all about focusing on the activities you enjoy, and finding ways to make the necessary tasks more enjoyable. If you love writing, put your energy into writing amazing blog posts or captions. If you hate networking but believe it will help your business, try to attend networking events with a friend.

Or free up your time by outsourcing the things you don't want to do/can't do/spend too long thinking about doing. 

Ultimately, there is no cookie-cutter solution to marketing. The best way to find YOUR flavour of marketing is to experiment, try, fail, try again, win, try again. FAFO for life.

Mistakes are just part of the learning process. Embrace them, take messy, imperfect action, and keep moving forward!

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