You’re Marketing to Everyone

It isn’t unheard of that new businesses will try marketing to everyone to maximize their sales and try to reach a bigger audience. But this often does more harm than good. Sure, advertising to everyone might get you some sales, but you’ll be wasting time and money appealing to a broader audience than you would by marketing directly to the people who make up your consumer base. You also risk missing out on valuable opportunities to create meaningful relationships with your consumers if you lump everyone into the same category. 

So if you shouldn’t market to everyone, what’s the alternative? 

Knowing your consumer base makes this next part much easier. Over time, you might begin recognizing patterns among the people who frequently purchase from your business. These patterns often characterize their habits, mentalities, and values. By understanding these similarities, you can begin categorizing your consumers into distinct segments. This makes planning your marketing efforts much simpler since you’ll already know what products they tend to buy and what their motivations for purchase tend to be. Now you can create more personalized advertising efforts tailored towards the characteristics of each consumer segment. And remember: everything can be adjusted as your needs, goals and business change!

Equating Success with Immediate Results

In a world of instant gratification, seeing results come in slowly can often feel like failure rather than progress. All good things come with time and patience, but it is important to monitor the progress of your marketing efforts. You might find that it is better received by an audience that wasn’t your original focus, which could hint at untapped market potential. You might also find that you’re getting engagement on social media but no actual business from it, which could hint at the need to modify your call to action, so your audience knows what they should do next. 

Not having immediate results isn’t always something to worry about and is not always an indication of failure or success. Stick with it and keep an eye on how you can modify your efforts as needed. 

You’re Trying to Use Every Social Media Platform

In most cases, trying to use every social media platform to market your business can be a huge waste of time. The social media platform you use to promote your business should be where your audience is the most likely to be. If you’re a retail fashion business, chances are you’ll have more luck on Instagram and TikTok vs. LinkedIn. By knowing who your products or services are made for, you can more readily craft content that will engage your target audience. Not only that, but you will also save yourself time by creating content that’s appropriate for your optimal platforms, instead of stretching yourself thin to meet unnecessary demands. 

You Don’t Have a Website

Even if you are successful on social media, that does not dismiss the importance behind having a professional website for your business. Websites give your brand an element of credibility, and can also help with visibility. Websites offer way more opportunities to boost your SEO ranking than social media posts. While you don’t necessarily need a website to register for a Google Business Profile, having one will help push your business to the top of relevant search results. 

Websites also offer the opportunity to showcase your products or services in a way that puts the important information front and centre. From product catalogs to image libraries, websites are still the best way to host your business portfolio. Not only that, but websites can encourage consumer contact. Contact pages make it quick and easy for a curious customer to submit their inquiries while websites integrated with Google Maps offer a clear idea of where your business is physically located. This can be especially helpful for customers who are coming from out of town and aren’t familiar with the area. 

So yes, even if your social media accounts are strong, we recommend having a website. It will be your best employee!