Top 5 Marketing Mistakes of Growing Businesses

Marketing is a tricky subject, and one that requires a lot of help from external partners and vendors. You need to be able to grow your business in the right direction, but you can’t do it without some form of marketing and advertising.

Small businesses, think that they can get away with marketing activities easily by doing everything in-house.

That leads to a lot of strife between owners and employees, as the investment needs to be doubled -- and in some cases tripled.

Growing a business requires skill, effort and time.

Some business, like Slack, have grown through word of mouth and design, while others, like Dropbox, have grown through promotions and referrals. All of your efforts need to be aligned to the right objectives of growth and development.

However, along the lines of growing your business, you end up making key mistakes that can cost you your growth. You need to avoid these marketing mistakes so that you can make the most of your marketing efforts and gain positive ROI.

Because marketing is closely related to cash flow, there is a knee jerk reaction when you look at the growing numbers. You may be satisfied with business development activities when you see an uptick in sales, which may have occurred due to discounts and flash sales.

This isn’t a sustainable model as your business relies on steady cash-flow to succeed.

Businesses that do million-dollar revenues don’t have a crash and burn mentality. They focus on developing a steady sales cycle, that allows them to build a reputable brand in the market.

With the help of their brand, they charge a premium on services offered and ensure that there are no lapses in customer service.

Here are 5 key marketing mistakes that growing businesses sometimes fall under…

#1. Poor Customer Retention

By not having customer retention as a primary goal of the business, they focus on developing relationships with new customers that don’t last very long.

These new relationships start and finish at the transaction, and there is very little endearing quality to them. Customer retention is the new currency of a solid business, as customers have more options than ever before to get things going in the right direction.

Retention should be a core part of your marketing strategy and not just a passing thought.

Some investors might be satisfied with looking at growth figures, but many savvy investors are interested in seeing where your portfolio stands in terms of stability and development.

You can use various marketing materials like newsletters, content marketing and phone calls to understand where your customer retention is lacking.

You can create an effective growth channel on the basis of marketing and sales, but if your house isn’t standing on a clear ground, you could be looking at an ineffective marketing strategy. You must have a budget dedicated to retention and have it listed as a top priority once you’ve gone past revenue and break-even concerns.

#2 Boredom, New Projects and Cash Flow –

This may be a significant problem in the creative community, where artists, painters and coders may feel a sense of boredom in the work that they’re doing.

They start to side-line certain clients or push certain people away from the course of action.

This also happens when you don’t want to follow the money but instead focus solely on passion. This occurs many times with early stage entrepreneurs.

They quit their jobs looking for passion, and then they fall into the trap of finding satisfying work.

They forget about cashflows and tend to market themselves as “free spirits” or “passion first”.

That scares off a lot of prospects because they fear that the entrepreneur or small business may bail out on them when the times are tough.

#3 Lack of investments in marketing -

Marketing isn’t about feeling pride for your business or being a result of good service.

Marketing is a separate entity from client servicing and product development.

Although you may feel like you’ve done marketing by eliciting a satisfying response from your customer, you may be better off spending more on marketing activities.

This is especially true when it comes to local businesses.

Mom-n-pop stores, dentists, chiropractors, accountants, and local niche stores face an ongoing problem with visibility and reach. Since they’re limited to drive-ins and word of mouth, they face a lot of challenges in developing trust and building their brand.

Investing in marketing is the right way to go.

#4 Going All-In

This is a huge mistake that many entrepreneurs make when their business is finally growing.

They want to invest it all into one big marketing stockpile of inventory and can’t then face the barrage of customers. Other times they think one single message is the key to getting customers and put all their eggs in one basket.

That’s the feast or famine mentality.

In fact, during the off-seasons is when you should be considering marketing due to the cheaper cost of acquisition costs, and flexibility to customize the message. You can look at new opportunities, new avenues of growth and new areas of development.

#5 Cash flow = Marketing + Operations

This is something that a lot of entrepreneurs miss out on.

They think that when they have cash flow issues, they should shy away and not invest fully in marketing activities. However, that’s the perfect time to invest.

You get a great sense of achievement from ensuring that you have a steady supply of leads in the funnel, and any cash flow issues can be terminated by an active funnel.

When you’re facing cash flow problems in your business, you should double down on marketing activities – even if its as simple as networking or google ads. This is the right time to enhance your marketing strategy with investments.

Conclusion

Marketing is a double-edged sword and must be wielded by a brave warrior who appreciates the fine art of learning from mistakes.

Don’t be that guy – and focus on fixing these 5 mistakes that business often make when it comes to marketing.