It can be difficult to figure out what the right thing to do is when it comes to marketing your company. There's no magic bullet, no one size fits all strategy, and their so many different ways to market nowadays that knowing what's right for your company is almost impossible to figure out. When you don't know what to do, sometimes it helps to look at what not to do.
1. There can't only be one. Using only one form of marketing, having only a website, or only brochures, or only print ads, or relying only on word of mouth, does not work. While it may be difficult to figure out which marketing methods you want to use, it's vital that you use more than just one. It's fine if your business gets most of it's clients through word of mouth. But these days, with so much competition, if you don't expand, if you don't use online resources like ZocDoc.com, or list yourself at city hall, or have a presence on line, you'll miss out on clients and fall behind the competition.
2.The internet is your friend. A business without a web presence will not survive in our current climate. This is more than just having an eye catching, well designed website. It's about listing yourself online, being present not just at physical marketing conferences, but on online chat boards. It's about having a mobile website, and a Facebook page. The average person spends about 4 hours a day online. Americans spend about as much time online as they do watching tv, if not more. If you're advertising on TV, you should be advertising online as well.
3. Constant vigilance. The thing about cultivating an online presence, is that it must be a presence. Once you have your website, you have to maintain it. Having a twitter feed that only updates sporadically, if at all, defeats the purpose. Marketing online isn't like marketing in print or on TV. You can't just create an advertisement, put it out there, and ignore it until it starts delivering results. Fortunately, most web designers will also upkeep your website for you, but creating a site without maintaining it, or a Facebook group without updating it, is like buying a car without insurance.
4. But I have a superior product! It's an unfortunate truth that the quality of a good or service doesn't necessarily correlate to how well it does. It is perfectly possible to be the very best at what you do, but if the guy next door has a better ad campaign and slightly lower prices, he'll take all your business. Being the top of your field doesn't matter unless other people recognize you as such. A business can have a quality product, and only a few customers. Trusting only in your talent to see you through is tempting, but ultimately unwise.
5. All flash, no substance. On the flip side of the previous point, when advertising your product, there has to be content. It helps, of course, if you do have a superior product, but even if you don't, you must have an actual, tangible, product or service. Consumers are not stupid. If you have a flashy website with almost no real content, people notice. If you make big claims, but have nothing backing them up, people will notice. Just having a good product isn't enough. But not having a product at all is much, much worse.
Most of these mistakes come back to the same thing: the very human impulse to get more for less. (Or, in the case of point number 4, to rest on your laurels, so you don't have to do more work.) In order to make marketing work for you, you have to invest your time and your money into it. If you hire a marketing company, they'll take some of the personal time investment off your hands, but if you don't put in any effort at all, you won't get any results.
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