99 Marketing Mistakes: (And How to Avoid Them)

By Kenyon Blunt

Why do you need 99 Marketing Mistakes?

99 Marketing Mistakes is not another "how-to" book on digital marketing. It's born from from actual marketing mistakes that happen to small business owners. As we know, the point isn't to realize that you're screwing up; the point is to do something about it.

The Top 10 Marketing Challenges of Small Business Owners:
Kenyon surveyed small business owners, and here are the top 10 marketing challenges:
1. How do you get the most bang for your marketing bucks? (mistake #23)
2. How do you market with a small budget? (mistake #2)
3. What is the best channel for marketing a small business? (mistakes #48, 53 and 81)
4. How do you generate high-quality leads? (mistakes #58 and 59)
5. Who is your target customer? (mistake #4)
6. Is name recognition and branding more important than leads?
7. How do you carve out enough time to do marketing? (mistake #76)
8. How can you make digital marketing more effective? (mistake #81)
9. Where are you wasting money? (mistake #52)
10. Why aren't small businesses more consistent? (mistake #34)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Yorkshire Publishing
• Release date: Jun 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781952320316

Book preview

Foreword – David Meerman Scott

Today, buyers are in charge! The idea of mystery in the sales process is over. We research someone online before agreeing to a first date—is he a creep? We fire up LinkedIn an hour before an initial business meeting—does she have anyone I know in her network? We watch an on-demand movie trailer before deciding which film to see that night at the theater. We check out restaurant reviews and browse menus before booking a reservation.

But there’s a huge disconnect between the way people research products and services they are interested in and the way that small business owners market their businesses.

I see marketing mistakes every single day. The biggest mistake is small business owners who only focus on their own interests. Many people steeped in the tradition of product promotion naturally feel drawn to prattle on and on about their products and services. Yuk! But I have news for you. Nobody cares about your products and services (except you). Yes, you read that right.

What people do care about are themselves and how you can solve their problems. People also like to be entertained and to share in something remarkable. In order to have people become interested in you and your ideas, you must resist the urge to hype your products and services.

There are many other marketing mistakes that small business owners make. Well, there are 99 of them! Kenyon Blunt shares them with you in these pages, as well as provides advice on how to do marketing right.

I like how this book is organized around mistakes instead of the usual how-to formulas. I found myself nodding my head at many of them.

I encourage you to study the table of contents and jump right away to the mistakes that speak to you and what you are doing in your business. You can then take more time to read all of the mistakes over the next weeks.

This isn’t an academic tome because Kenyon Blunt is one of us, an entrepreneur and business owner. He has started or run six small-to medium-sized businesses and has a passion for marketing and entrepreneurship. He has marketed businesses to success. That’s exactly why Kenyon is the perfect person to learn from.

Read this book and learn how to grow your business.

Here’s to your success and your personal fulfillment,

David Meerman Scott

Marketing strategist, entrepreneur, and Wall Street Journal Bestselling author of Fanocracy and The New Rules of Marketing & PR

www.DavidMeermanScott.com

@dmscott

What is a Monograph?

Ihave to admit, I had to look up the definition of a monograph. A monograph is a detailed written study of a single, specialized subject. This book is precisely that – a detailed study of all the marketing mistakes that I’ve made. I suspect you’ve made some of them too. Before I go into that, however, let me tell you what prompted me to do something like this.

In 2007, I was hired to be the CEO of a marketing agency by a Private Equity Group (PEG) and tasked to turnaround an ailing marketing company. It was losing $800k per year. We managed to grow the company to nearly $12M in revenue, with an annual profit of around $2M. It was a real struggle to grow the company.

We took steps to fix many of the company’s problems (which took some time), but the one thing we couldn’t fix was the agency model. Marketing agencies were becoming obsolete, even back then. So, my marketing agency, like so many others, was caught in the crosshairs of a changing market. And, despite the turnaround, the PEG demanded even better results. I was stuck.

Have you ever felt like you couldn’t go forward, and you were scared to death of going backward? I kept thinking there had to be a ‘silver bullet’ that would get us to the next level. I kept trying more silver bullets – not many of them worked.

The problem is there are all sorts of new technologies and skills needed in today’s marketplace. Here are just a few of the roles I had in my old company: customer experience manager, digital marketing specialist, director of marketing analytics, statistician, application developer, and marketing strategist. There’s no way a small agency can be good at all of these. In my experience, trying to do too many things results in mistakes and wasted money.

Not long after this experience, I began a quest for a better way for small businesses to do marketing. When I went into coaching after running two different marketing agencies, I tried to market my own company. After all, I was a marketer for my entire career. If there’s one thing I should be able to do, it should be marketing.

I made even more mistakes – lots of them. I also realized that many other entrepreneurs were making the same mistakes as me. I started keeping track of all my screw-ups because I certainly didn’t want to make them again. That’s the story behind this book, 99 Marketing Mistakes You Can Avoid. Use this book as a reference on what not to do. I’m biased, but my Lean Marketing Process is an excellent way to do this.

I hope you enjoy the monograph, commiserate with me, and learn from the experience.

Introduction

Agood brainstorming exercise used by business coaches is to have teams envision how they can 10X their business. It stretches their thinking. So, just for fun, I did a Google search on How to 10X your business, and I was surprised at the number of posts. As you can imagine, almost all of them had a different prescription. I did notice, however, that marketing was at the core of all the strategies. Here are some strategic questions for growing your company:

Are you playing in the right sandbox?

Do you need to focus or diversify your offerings?

What kind of talent do you need?

Are you focusing on the right customer?

I contend that marketing can 10X your business. When done right, marketing generates a consistent flow of leads, and you know that something will work before you spend the money. It’s like investing in a blue-chip stock—you are pretty sure the investment will pay-off.

The problem is that most of us don’t do it very well. We make mistakes – and mistakes cost money. It seems apparent to me that we need to get better at marketing to grow our small businesses.

This book contains 99 marketing mistakes. Unfortunately, I’ve made many of them myself. You can read them in order or start with a chapter that resonates with you. The episodes are only a few pages long, so you can read each mistake and apply them to your business. I’ve categorized the mistakes into six parts:

Errors of omission

Spending money on the wrong things

Screwing up

Wrong strategies

You

Digital mistakes

Most of the mistakes fall into multiple categories.

There’s only one thing that I ask, that is, learn from these mistakes. The hope is that we begin to market differently. I’ve developed a way to do that called The Lean Marketing Plan. If you’d like to learn more, please go to my website, www.KenyonBlunt.com.

PART 1

ERRORS OF OMISSION

Mistake #1

No Written Marketing Plan

It’s unlikely that you started your business because you love marketing. Your passion is serving customers. If marketing isn’t what you like, here are six reasons why you should consider developing a marketing plan:

Marketing gives you leverage. Marketing can grow your business faster than anything else you do. Building a consistent funnel for sales is the key to business growth.

A plan forces you to think. The act of completing a plan forces you to formulate and articulate your thinking about customers, products, and the value you deliver.

You have measurable goals. CEO’s reason that if they just beat last year’s numbers, it’s okay. It’s not okay. Having tangible goals will help you increase performance.

You’ll allocate your money better. If you only spend money when it seems like a good idea, you’ll increase the chances of wasting it. Having a plan means that you’ll have something with which to judge new opportunities. Does it fit the marketing plan or not?

It helps you focus. Since you only have so many hours in the day, you need to prioritize those actions that have the highest likelihood of success.

Being proactiveis better than being reactive. Many business owners have BODD Business Owner Distraction Disorder. Jumping from one fire to the next is a sure recipe for disaster. Having a written plan helps you anticipate your actions in advance and enact a more measured response.

Trying to create a marketing plan beyond 90 days is futile. Getting on a quarterly rhythm is the key to using it continually. A quarterly cadence gives you the flexibility to adjust your marketing activities based on what works and what doesn’t.

How to Develop a Marketing Plan

A small business marketing plan outlines how you’re going to accomplish your goals. If you’ve never put together a plan like this, it isn’t straightforward. It seems like every how-to book on marketing has a different take on the essential ingredients of a plan. But, no matter, your plan should be an easily understood document that provides direction for the next quarter or year.

I call my process, The Lean Marketing Plan. It’s 8-steps for developing a quarterly marketing plan.

Pre-planning

The first step in the planning process is to do some pre-work. Here are three activities I like to do before starting:

Preplanning. Every small business plan differs because the situation of the businesses is different. Before you start planning, determine which strategy is most appropriate for your company. Are you a stable business or just getting started? Whatever the situation, try to develop goals and tactics that are consistent for your stage of growth. Arm yourself with the company’s latest financial reports, a listing of products/services, a competitive analysis, and feedback from your employees. A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is also helpful.

Determining your budget. Having a budget lets you know which activities you can afford. See mistake #2 for more information on how to develop a budget. In addition to money, set a budget for how much time you can allocate to marketing.

Establishing a timeline. Most marketing experts recommend a planning horizon of one year. I like quarterly plans. In my opinion, things change too frequently for an annual plan to be effective. Whether you choose quarterly or annual planning, know that some course corrections will be required. Review your plans periodically and make the necessary revisions.

The Lean Marketing Process (8-steps)

The purpose of my Lean Marketing process is to present a new concept for planning. It’s a simple, two-page plan that business owners can use to plan their marketing efforts, allocate scarce dollars, and keep a consistent supply of leads coming into their businesses. The eight steps in the process are: 1) setting quarterly marketing goals, 2) creating your core customer, 3) developing a brand identity, 4) creating a value ladder, 5) determining your pricing strategy, 6) providing killer content, 7) optimizing your website, and 8) developing your quarterly marketing initiatives. These eight steps are all detailed in my eBook mentioned above.

Measure Results and Make Course Corrections

The last step in my process is to measure results and adjust the plan accordingly. Your priorities will shift during the year, which is another reason why quarterly planning makes more sense than annual planning. Additionally, you’ll want to make sure that you’re maximizing the investments of your time and money. I like to do this by setting up a regular cadence of meetings. There are three types of meetings I hold to create and monitor marketing plans:

Quarterly development meetings. These meetings are usually half-day or full-day sessions that review the progress of the last quarter’s initiatives and create a plan for the next quarter. It’s also a good idea to compare the marketing plan to the company’s annual or strategic plan and make sure it’s in alignment.

Monthly calibration meetings. Just like the name implies, these meetings review the quarter’s initiatives and make any changes necessary. Calibration meetings range from two to four hours in length.

Weekly tactical meetings. Tactical meetings are one hour or less in length and held on a Friday or Monday to review the marketing tactics for the coming week.

Planning is essential for small businesses. Create a blueprint, follow it, and make the necessary revisions. More importantly, always go back to your plan and make it a living document. Otherwise, it will just gather dust on your credenza.

Mistake #2

No Marketing Budget

Most small business owners won’t admit it; they don’t have a marketing budget. If pressed, they don’t have any budget. Furthermore, most small business CEO’s don’t look at what their competitors spend, what’s normal in their industry or any other rationale. A new ¹survey from Clutch revealed that close to two-thirds of 61 percent of small businesses didn’t have an official budget of any kind.

Small business owners wing it. It’s a haphazard approach to marketing and one that leads to a lot of wasted money.

Why Budget?

Businesses of all sizes should create a budget if they don’t want to risk the future of their companies. Without a budget, you don’t have a measuring stick against which you can judge performance. A budget gives you a clear picture – you’re able to see how your actual results varied from the budget you established. More importantly, a budget allows you to make decisions so you can turn the ship around before it’s too late.

How to Budget?

The truth is, nobody knows what to spend on marketing because every business and industry is different. Most can’t agree on what expenses to include in a marketing budget. Should the website be part of marketing or separate? How about PR and promotion? This lack of definition shouldn’t discourage you. You still need to do it.

The most common method of developing a marketing budget is to base it on a percentage of revenue. It’s usually between 3-5 percent for small businesses. But the correct allocation depends on several factors like what industry you’re in or your current capacity.

A good rule of thumb for small businesses with less than $5M in revenue is to spend 7-8 percent of revenues on marketing.

Spend Your Budget Wisely

Don’t beat yourself up over not having a budget. My advice is to accept where you’re at and work from there. Focus on improving the efficiency of your marketing and concentrate on spending your precious marketing dollars wisely. It’s easier to do if you review your marketing expenditures monthly. While I recommend a quarterly marketing plan, waiting this long to consider your budget increases the chance of spending more than you planned.

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1 https://clutch.co/accounting/resources/why-small-businesses-need-budgets

Mistake #3

No Goals

The best way to improve your sales is to set ²marketing goals. When business owners implement marketing programs without defining their goals, they end up with inconsistent and ineffective results. How do you know you’re successful unless you set goals?

Having clear goals allows you to make choices:

What do I need to work on today?

Is this going to get me closer to my company’s longer-term plan?

What can I take off my to-do list?

Are there activities I can outsource so I can focus on the growth of my business?

The first step in determining your marketing goals is to pick the desired outcome. It could be how much money you want to make, revenue from your signature product, the number of new clients, etc. You’ll need to pick goals that are quantifiable and measurable. All goals should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Action-Oriented, and Time-Bound). Here are some examples:

Run an ad for a new eBook on LinkedIn and generate 50 new prospects by the end of Q1.

Create a new lead magnet that will generate 200 subscribers to email database – Q1.

Develop and promote a webinar that results in 25 new leads and generates $5000 in revenue.

What Goals to Set

You should have quarterly goals that reflect your sales and marketing effort. The graphic image of a funnel is often used to explain how marketing and sales interact. Think of the top of the funnel as marketing. Marketing’s task is to get leads; sales have to convert those leads into closed business. Many argue about the number of stages a lead should pass through before becoming a customer. And, to complicate matters even further, marketers often use different terminology to describe these stages. Here are the basics that you need to have to set your quarterly marketing goals:

Target Available Market – how many total prospects are available.

Marketing Qualified Leads – the number of leads generated by your marketing efforts.

Sales Conversations – the number of offline conversations held.

New Customers – how many new customers purchased.

You can add more stages, but these are the basics for your Lean Marketing Plan. If you’d like a Lean Marketing Plan template, you can download one here.

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2 https://kenyonblunt.com/elementor-1131/

Mistake #4

No Definition Of Your Core Customer

Pick up almost any book or article on small business marketing, and it probably starts with a description of your customer. It is so essential but widely ignored. Why? In my opinion, it’s not a matter of knowing your customer, but it’s the depth of that understanding. Customers respond to either pain or gain. How does your product or service move your customers away from pain or closer to gain? A customer description that includes these motivators is vitally important.

What Is a Core Customer?

Regardless of the type of business, you sell to customers. In the past, marketers have used the term target customer, but core customer is more appropriately descriptive. It means that you want to identify a specific customer, a real person. Your customers are unique individuals—they are more than just statistics. The more you know about your customers, the more you’ll be able to recognize their needs and cater to them.

To grow your business, you need to create and identify your core customer. ³The Inside Advantage by Bob Bloom explains that not all customers are created equal. Some will drain your resources while others require little support. The goal of defining your core customer is to get more of the latter.

Create Your Customer Persona

To go beyond a demographic description, you need to develop a profile of your core customer that describes who they are, what they do, and why they like buying your product or service. Essentially, you are creating a fictional profile based on your understanding of customers’ needs and decision-making process. It’s called a persona, and it’s used to help shape the copy you write