Stop Wasting your Money in worst ways of Marketing

Worst Ways for Small Businesses who are Wasting Money in Marketing 

I've poured loads of money into ads for years, which never really succeeded.

"We updated our website, cranked out brochures, and went to trade shows as one of my former companies, always hoping that whatever we tried next would finally be the "magic" plan that eventually powered registrations.

Spoiler alert: even though we had a wonderful product, none of it ever worked.

We had sunk into the money pit of marketing, investing so much cash on great-looking marketing materials that just didn't fit.

Sounds familiar with that?

You can relate if you're like most small businesses. Each year at StoryBrand, we connect with around 3000 customers. We've heard customers tell us time after time about their expensive rebranding program. We wince and tell them as kindly as we can that all of this was a waste of money.

I am so tired of seeing that small business leaders are wasting marketing resources. In one of three instances, it appears to occur. I want to show you what they are PLUS how to stop them so that your valuable marketing resources go into strategies that your company can actually develop.

Redesigning a website without clarifying their message first

Both of us know how it's going.

"I need a new website," you say to yourself.

In order to help you build it, you shop around and eventually find somebody. They're planning and constructing the site, and it looks absolutely stunning. This is your son, and you're the proudest parent of all time.

But nothing happens once it is launched. They don't increase sales. New customers aren't coming through the gates. You have this wonderful new website, but nobody pays attention to it.

The issue? In architecture, graphic artists get degrees. Like Photoshop and Illustrator, the master software. They're extremely creative and know how to make beautiful stuff.

But very few of them ever do a sales copy report. They're not writing words to sell products.

Based on the words they hear and read, people buy your goods. And yes, these words can be made more visible and understandable by the design. But in the end, these are the words that inspire us to take action.

You lose money when you go to a graphic designer or agency to create a website, and they are not educated on how to write the right words that will sell the product. On their good looks alone, websites can't get by.

To write the words on your website, are you depending on design experts? If so, you're probably using the wrong phrases and they're costing you money.

Check out our field guide for every step of the process before you update your website, and don't presume that a pretty site is an efficient one.

Sponsoring a trade show booth without a solid one-liner

Are trade shows a part of your marketing strategy?

Exhibiting at a trade show lets you interact face-to-face with qualified potential buyers and can significantly boost your brand’s impact.

You have allocated a whopping 31.6 per cent of your total marketing budget to trade shows if you're a typical company (according to this research). And some serious coins have been dropped on your shows, supplies, and travel expenses.

And it all looks fantastic. Heck, you even have the most trendy succulents and new furniture.

But what words do members of your team say when prospects enter your booth? How do they express what your business is doing and the issues you are solving?

You're wasting all that money if you don't know. Because it may draw attention from your eye-popping booth, but it is ultimately the words you use inside the booth that will win you more company.

You need a one-liner: a well-crafted expression that can be said to get people to purchase your product.

First, the issue your average customer has is outlined in this sentence. Then it explains how the issue is solved by your product or service. And finally, a resolution explains how the life of the client is improved as a result of using the product.

When you have a one-liner, make sure any employee who staffs your booth knows it cold. Those prospective customers will listen and remember it when you use the formula to say what you do. And you'll really get a better return on your trade show investment instead of throwing away your marketing dollars.

Developing an email newsletter that no one reads

You're wasting money if you're asking clients to sign up for your email newsletter.

Here's the reason.

No one wants to sign up for your newsletter by email!

Honestly, how many newsletters in a given month do you sign up for? Within a year? And of those you get, which ones are you actually reading, much less clicking on them

Let's just assume that someone has signed up for your newsletter. That means you've got to send one every week or every month.

You need to write or collect content, monitor images, design, format, and test and submit it all. Or, instead of the other significant things on their list, you have to ask one of your workers to waste money and also waste their precious time doing it.

What does all that effort really do to drive small business, in either case?

The time has come to go beyond the newsletter. There are much better strategies for email newsletter out there which can:

More email signups than could ever be created by a simple "newsletter" offer Build deeper, more trusted customer relationships. Strengthen your authority in your sector as a leader.

Push sales directly from the emails you are sending

One of those tactics is simply to give your subscribers a free piece of "lead generating" content when they sign up for your newsletters. With a lead generator, here's how to grow your email list. It will probably take the same amount of staff time as a newsletter to execute this plan, plus a series of smart follow-up emails, but it will produce a much better return on that investment.

So many firms are spending large sums of money on ads. I don't want you to have that happen. If there's something on this list you're doing, I want you to stop. I also want this free video series for you to check out. In it, I go into a lot more detail on what to do instead so that you can avoid the money pit of marketing and begin to build a marketing that actually grows your small business.