Small businesses tend to have fewer resources when it comes to marketing their brand. This is sad because, small business tends to pack a punch when it comes to a strong brand identity. Where small businesses are usually put at a disadvantage is when it comes to connecting with their consumer. They have difficulty gathering the resources and the expertise in marketing their brand. The largest issue is making it through the noise that is pre-existing in the marketplace. This is where it is important to avoid key mistakes and harmful perspectives. Here are the three biggest mistakes that a small business can make when launching their marketing strategy.

1) Putting all of your eggs in one basket

Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket! Keep a diverse marketing plan. Putting all of your funds into just social media, or just Google adwords will not get you anywhere long term. It might temporarily bring traffic, but it will not last. Keep an overall presence online that will solidify leads long term.

A side note to remember is, just having a website does not bring traffic to your site. Your website needs to be optimized and constantly advertised to your target audience. Otherwise it is difficult to generate leads and give your customers the confidence to seek you out. This means updating your site with content consistently.

2) Choosing to just go by word of mouth

Word of mouth is great and it is an effective way to expose people to your brand. It gives people a sneak peek into what another customer thought of you and your business. This method is changing greatly with the worldwide web. When a customer receives a business’s name or business card they no longer just call a number or send an email out to get a service or product. They go online. They look at your website. They look at reviews. This means that the review from a previous customer will no longer be enough when it comes to your marketing campaign. So you need to make sure that you are ready when a customer comes to search out information on your company.

3) Not measuring effectiveness of campaigns (Throwing spaghetti at a wall method)

The third largest mistake that small businesses make online is what I call “Throwing spaghetti at the wall method.” It is when a business throws out every idea that they have for digital marketing and don’t look at the numbers behind their tactics.

The effectiveness of a marketing campaign is a big deal. If you are spending time and money trying to get your name out there, you need to be able to read the result. This can be done by looking on Google Analytics, seeing how many followers you have on social media, and reading the reviews on third party sites.

To start off you don’t need to do a deep dive into your data. You need to simply build up your online presence in order for there to be good data. This means having a website that works, having well balanced social media, and having solid information on third party sites like Yelp.

Going this first gives you more accurate and helpful information. After you have those aspects in place then it is time to look at where your website traffic mainly comes from and where people are going. This way you can optimize your site for content.