3 reasons your marketing isn’t working for your small business
There are three things your small business marketing needs to do in order to influence the behaviour of your target audience.
When something is out of whack with your marketing, it’s very easy as a small business owner to believe that nothing is working. However, when you strip it back there are really only three things that come together to create great marketing. And if you can identify what your problem is, it’ll be easier to decide the best course of action to fix it.
I often speak to small business owners who are feeling deflated or demotivated with their marketing, so look for a quick fix or new shiny tactic that will get them all the sales they’ll ever need. Generally, this just leads to spending lots of money on small courses or programs that promise results, and either they never finish them, or worse, they do and it doesn’t fix their issue.
There are three ways in which your marketing might not be working for you, and the kind of solution you need will depend on which of these things is the real problem:
1. Your product isn’t right for your target audience
One reason you might not be seeing sales is because maybe your product just isn’t right for your audience. This could be because of the price point, ingredients, materials, packaging or if you offer a service, there could be something that’s not included, or something not quite right with your offer.
An easy way to understand if this is your problem would be to talk to whoever’s buying the product and ask them why. Or you might need to find your target audience and ask if someone is not buying the product why they’re holding off.
Another way of figuring out if your product or service needs some work is by doing a competitor comparison to check your features and benefits align with what others are offering for that price point.
2. Your messaging isn’t right for your target audience
If you know people will buy your product, either through talking to them or because you’ve got a similar product or service to your competitors, or because you’re selling it and hearing good things, then the next thing to look at is your messaging.
If you’re not communicating what your audience needs to hear at the right times in their buying decision making process, they don’t have the information to make a decision about why or how to buy your product.
You could review this by talking to your target audience, looking at competitors' sales journeys, or even just getting into the headspace of your target audience and taking some time to review the messaging yourself.
3. You’re not showing up in the right place
If you know your product is solid, your messaging really resonates and your marketing is STILL not growing your audience / getting more engagement / converting prospects into customers, then the last thing to check is where you’re saying all these things about your wonderful product.
Firstly, are your target audience here and looking for your solution to their problem? If they’re hanging out in the place where you are - on Google search results, social media or at events specifically - are they able to find your website / post / event stand?
And if they can find you, are you using that marketing channel in all the best practice ways to grow, engage and convert an audience?
If you’re a B2B small business marketing yourselves on TikTok, but your service is very niche, and a high price point - I would say you’re probably in the wrong place, and you should get yourselves over to LinkedIn.
Let’s say you’re a skincare brand, and you’re trying to use SEO to grow your website traffic. If you know that competitors make sales through organic search traffic, then it’s a pretty safe bet you’re in the right place.
However, if you’re ranking very low on Google, and for only a few search terms, then chances are you won’t be seeing great results, because your audience can’t find you.
Right person, right place, right time
The fundamentals of marketing any product, whether it’s for a small business or not, are about saying the right thing to the right person at the right time.
It can be easy to see some success if you happen to stumble on the right combination of these, but to see consistent sales and grow as a business you need more than luck.
A marketing strategy that’s backed up by theory is invaluable in ensuring you’re taking action on the right marketing activities. By sitting down to consider who your target audience are, how your product meets their needs and how you should be communicating that with them, you can create a map for consistent sales.
And once you’ve done it once, you can repeat it again, but slightly better - based on how it performed the first time.
If you want to create a marketing strategy that is tailored to your business, and your goals, you can learn more about my signature marketing programme and book a free 1:1 consultation here.
