3 Important don'ts when entering the market with a new business

Entering the market with a new business is an exciting experience. Your marketing strategy will play a crucial role in the success of your company. Here are three of the most common marketing mistakes, and how you can overcome them. These are 3 important don'ts' that people tend to do.

When most people think about starting a business, they often think too far ahead. Even though the long term plan is important, it’s also important to take some time to think about your short term marketing strategy.

Instead of focusing heavily on niche specific marketing mistakes, we are going to take a look at mistakes that new business owners can make when working out how they are going to market their company and target their customers.

1. Don't overestimate the idea of needing a complete website for marketing

One of the first mistakes many business owners make is to believe they must have a complete website to start marketing to their audience. A common trend among new startups that may be useful is creating a ‘coming soon’ page for their potential customers.

A coming soon page is a way to give customers a taste of what’s to come when your website and business officially launches. We often have it set in our minds that it is impossible to promote something that doesn’t yet exist, but that’s not true.

2. Don’t forget a contact page

Surprisingly, many new business owners forget about this crucial aspect of their website. It doesn't matter if you’re creating a coming soon page or launching the full website on day one, you must have an easy way for customers to contact your business!

There is a variety of free and premium contact form builders available you can download for your website. These builders give you the freedom and flexibility to build custom contact pages for your customers so they can communicate what they need help with regarding your product or service. You could also use this as an opportunity to discover what kind of pain points your customers have, as it pertains to your niche, so you can work on improving your company once you notice a reoccurring problem.

Contact pages are relevant because they are a way for you to keep in contact with the people who buy your products or services, potentially adding them to your email marketing list. This strategy could open the door for future email offers and makes marketing new products to a test audience easy.

3. Don’t be afraid to experiment

When people start marketing their website to a broader audience, they often feel as if their way is the only right way. You have to be able to come to terms with your notions of what customers want and run split tests on your marketing campaign and on-site ads to learn what your customers expect from your brand.

For example, if you’re running a site about content marketing and keep pushing a free checklist for new bloggers and no one is responding, maybe it’s time to think about other things that could benefit your target audience. You can run split tests with two ad campaigns for instance, one with the free checklist and one with access to a SEO webinar and see which one is the most attractive.

The point here is that sometimes you have to put different options out there, see how the customers respond, and use the obtained analytic data to determine where to take your business model next.

Conclusion

As a new business owner, your marketing strategy will likely change rapidly during the first few years of business. You’ll learn how to handle customer issues and how you can use their problems to build a better product.

After you’ve nailed down a formula, it’s essential to keep your mind open and anticipate small changes while marketing. The small changes can and will add up to more significant changes over time. One final tip is that you must be prepared to evolve with your brand and your customers. Don’t get too comfortable or set in your ways.

If the past decade has taught us anything, it’s that marketing is continually changing based on social media, customer perception and needs, and how you present your business to potential leads.

Author: Thomas Griffin

Source: Business.com