Strong marketing and a good sales process are essential to the success of any brand, but they’re especially important for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). Good practices can earn you customers and convince people to give your products a shot. Bad practices may lead them to your competitors.
Small business owners are often experts on the products they sell. They know the benefits these goods can provide, and they may be able to guide a potential customer through the subtle differences between various offerings. However, owners may not always be a natural when it comes to sales.
There are a few things that almost every small business struggles with regarding sales. Fortunately, knowing about these potential roadblocks can be enough to avoid them:
1. Not Having a Plan
Every effective marketing strategy starts with a plan. Without a written idea of how you’ll market your business, you can easily waste time trying things that don’t work or covering the same ground. Ads on different channels may not feel consistent, which can make it harder for you to create a solid brand identity.
The data you collect on new leads could go to waste if you’re not thinking about how that information will be stored and shared between team members — like marketers, salespeople and customer service representatives.
2. Failing to Research
Similarly, skipping early market research can also cause major problems. Many small business owners think they know who they’re selling to, but are surprised once they start digging deep into market research.
You may find that your customers belong to wildly different demographic or income groups than you’d expected. Sales territory mapping can show you where your customers are, which may help you connect with a location or climate you’re not taking full advantage of.
3. Doing Everything Yourself
As a small business owner, it may not be your first instinct to delegate. Marketing duties, while part of the core to your business’s success, are too much for one person to handle on their own.
You will need to eventually build a marketing department for your company or hand off some marketing responsibilities to your employees. The executive staff or owners of an SMB should stay involved in planning the big picture of a business’s marketing — the overall brand identity, tone and advertising strategy. However, getting caught up in every aspect of advertising can create issues.
Take advantage of the expertise others have. For example, a skilled designer may cost you, but they can provide an expert logo, website or graphics that will help you stand out.
4. Not Having a Unique Selling Point
Your business is likely up against several competitors with their own stories, brand identities and approaches to marketing. If you want to succeed, you’ll need to effectively demonstrate to customers what makes your brand different and why they should pick your company out of all the options available.
Your unique selling point (USP) is something that your company does better than the competition. It may be an advantage that one of your products offers. It may be something about your business processes that provides benefits for customers — like top-tier customer service, sustainable or specialty materials and a commitment to detail.
So long as your selling point is unique and offers something your audience wants, it can be an effective USP.
5. Focusing on the Same Channels
You have access to a massive number of marketing channels — like print media, paid search advertising, in-person events and social media platforms. When marketing, it may be tempting to reuse the same strategy, especially if you find early success with one channel.
You won’t reach all of your audience members if you rely on the same few channels. You’ll also likely struggle to grow your customer base over a long enough period. When planning a new marketing campaign, look at the different channels you have available. If you’ve avoided a particular channel or never used one, consider the possible benefits of using it going forward.
Customer research can help here. If you have information on which channels your audience uses, you can quickly see where you might expand your marketing to reach that audience more effectively.
6. Making Your Target Audience “Everyone”
If you try to be everything to everyone, you can have a harder time really speaking to the customers who are most interested in the products or services you offer. If you choose a too-broad target audience, you may have difficulties nailing down a tone or brand voice. You may also find it hard to identify a unique selling point.
While you want to market to as many people as possible and keep your business growing, there are real risks in trying to advertise to everyone.
When performing your market research, start by breaking the market into the segments that are already buying your product or most likely to buy. Focusing on these customers — their needs, wants and problems — can help you develop a marketing strategy with clear benefits to promote. You’ll also have a stronger idea of what your business is trying to do.
Avoid These Sales Pitfalls
A strong approach to sales and marketing is essential for any small business that wants to keep growing. These sales pitfalls are some of the most common for new and smaller companies. Fortunately, they’re fairly easy to avoid if you know how to recognize them.
SMB owners who are willing to delegate the sales process and work with sales teams who know how to research and segment their target audience can often effectively market their products, no matter who they’re trying to sell to.
About the author
Lexie is a UX designer and IoT enthusiast. She enjoys hiking her goldendoodle and creating new fudge recipes. Visit her design blog, Design Roast, and connect with her on Twitter @lexieludesigner.
