As a small business owner, it’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day operations and overlook the importance of investing time and effort into your marketing strategy. With the best intentions, you can create (or think through) marketing tactics, but what can you do to make sure your marketing plan doesn’t fail?

The Top 8 Flaws in Marketing Plans

1. Lack of Clear Objectives. What do you want to accomplish? Without clearly defined goals, your marketing efforts can be wishy washy and borderline ineffective. You may be sick of (SMART) objectives, but they still hold true. Your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound – like increasing website traffic by 20% within six months or generating 50 new qualified leads per quarter.
2. Misreading Your Target Market. Many marketing plans fail because they don’t accurately identify and understand their target audience. Before you start any marketing activity, invest time in market research. What are your customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors? This helps to tailor your messaging, positioning, and marketing and PR tactics to make sure they’re aligned with what your ideal customer wants.
3. Inconsistent Branding. Random and ill-placed branding dilutes your business’s identity and weakens its impact on potential customers. Create comprehensive brand guidelines that include your logo, colors, fonts, tone of voice, and visual elements. For best results, be consistent across all marketing channels — including your website, social media profiles, directories, and collateral materials. Do 30 minutes of online research to see how your brand shows up!
4. Poor Customer Communication. Your middle name doesn’t need to be Einstein to know that communication is the foundation of building relationships. It’s true with families, businesses, pets, and marketing, too. Failing to connect with customers can lead to missed opportunities. If you’re spending a ton of time and resources on a winning marketing plan, follow through with clear and concise messaging on every post, article, blog, and video. Pick the channels that work best. Just because Threads is gaining traction at lightning speed, doesn’t mean you have to use it —right now.
5. Weak Customer Relationship Management. Neglecting to maintain strong relationships with existing customers can squash growth and mess up your marketing strategy. Implement a simple customer relationship management (CRM) system to organize customer data and track interactions. Leverage that information to personalize your sales and marketing efforts and stay in touch with customers to build loyalty and lifetime value. Here are some CRM’s to check out. I like Pipedrive because it’s a more visual platform, and it’s affordable.
6. Underfunded Budgets. Even with all the no-cost and low-cost marketing and PR strategies available, marketing still requires some financial investment. Many small businesses make the mistake of allocating an unrealistic budget for marketing — and it bites them every time. Evaluate your goals at least every six months and determine a realistic budget with some wiggle room. Consider a mix of paid advertising, free PR, content creation, and social media campaigns to maximize your reach. Why not get the biggest bang for your buck?
7. Failure to Analyze and Adjust. I’d say failure to launch, but that’s not the case here. Lack of measurement and adjustment is a critical oversight. If you do the work, don’t you want to know if it’s working? Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) like website traffic, conversion rates, social media engagement, and acquisition rates – and know where your customers are coming from. Analytical tools will help you to gain insight so you can tweak your marketing tactics to optimize results over time.
8. Lackluster Accountability. Without clear accountability and follow-through, even the best marketing plan can fall flat. Assign responsibilities to team members or outsourced staff and establish a system of accountability. Regularly review progress, hold meetings to discuss results, address challenges, and brainstorm new ideas. When you get everyone onboard with your marketing plan and everyone is invested, you have a better chance of success.

Bottomline: Many small business owners (and non-profits, too) spend most of their time working IN their business not ON their business, because time is a critical factor and stuff needs to get done. As you analyze your company’s marketing and PR activities, think about these 8 Reasons Why Marketing Plans Fail – and plan like heck to avoid them. No one wants you to spin your wheels, waste time, or fail. Certainly not me.

Stuck in the muck? Happy to lend a hand.