Rookie Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

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Avoid these marketing pitfalls if you want your new business to thrive! Whether you're just starting out or looking to refine your approach, these ten marketing mistakes could be silently sabotaging your growth.

The temptation to take shortcuts is real – buying followers seems like a quick win until you realize those fake accounts never convert to sales. Running ads without proper funnels? That's just throwing money into the digital void. And trying to maintain a presence on every social platform often leads to inconsistent posting and burnout rather than meaningful engagement.

What works for your competitors won't necessarily work for you. Your authenticity and unique approach are your greatest assets, so stop copying others and define your own voice. Proper branding isn't optional – it sets the foundation for every marketing effort and builds crucial trust before customers ever contact you. Quality always trumps quantity when it comes to content, so ditch the daily posting schedule and focus on strategic, valuable content that serves your audience.

The most successful small businesses understand that marketing extends far beyond social media. Email campaigns, networking, professional photography, and careful analytics all play crucial roles in a comprehensive strategy. When you diversify your approach and make data-driven decisions, you create multiple opportunities for customers to discover and connect with your business on their terms.

Ready to transform your marketing approach? Start by focusing on one strong channel, then layer in complementary strategies over time. Your business deserves better than these common marketing mistakes – listen now to learn what to do instead!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hey y'all, what's up?
It's Shelby here with theMarketing Happy Hour podcast.
Thank you so much for tuning inagain to listen and learn about
marketing your small business,in whatever industry that you
are in.
Today, we are going to talkabout marketing techniques to
stay away from as a new business.
There's so many things outthere including things that I

(00:49):
put out there about things youneed to be doing as a small
business.
There's so many things outthere, including things that I
put out there about things youneed to be doing as a small
business, but there's not a lotabout things you need to stay
away from.
So I thought, hey, let's talkabout it today.
Let's think about some stuffthat I've done for my clients or
I've done for myself and I'velearned my lesson, and I want
you guys to learn your lesson,or learn a lesson from me,

(01:13):
before actually making thesemistakes yourself.
So we're going to go through 10things today and we're going to
talk about each one of them andmaybe something that we can do
instead of these things to stayaway from.
The first one is buyingfollowers or engagement.
Man y'all, back in the day whensocial media came around for

(01:33):
businesses like Instagram andall that we used to be able to
buy followers and, yes, we stillcan do that.
But the problem with that is isthe algorithms are too smart
now.
Instagram's too smart, meta'stoo smart.
They know that you are buyingthose followers.
I actually have an example ofthis.
Someone that I connected with afew years ago I'll say a few.

(01:57):
Probably about four or fiveyears ago, she asked me how she
can get over 20,000 followers onher Instagram and I said,
honestly, like it is a slowgrowth on Instagram because you
know, you guys, y'all know thatI'm all about organic growth and
all that, and she didn't liketo hear that.
So she was like, well, I found,this way I can buy these

(02:19):
followers and, um, get over20,000.
And I think her goal was to getover 20,000 because she wanted
to be able to.
I think it was like shop onInstagram or live on Instagram,
something like that.
It was whenever one of those,you had to have so many
followers to actually be able todo that.
And now I'm following her and Isee her posting and, yes, she's

(02:40):
got engagement.
But I go and look at the likesand the people that are
commenting and it's literallyall fake accounts, so you can
tell, even five years later,that the people engaging with
her content are all fake.
So if we have fake people onour social media, how is that
growing our business?
How is that helping us do sales?

(03:01):
All it does is make you looklike you have all these
followers and all of thisengagement on your post, but
it's not real.
Like don't we want those peopleto be real, so that way they go
and tell their friends or theyshare it to their story, or
maybe they purchase our serviceor our product.
That is why it is so importantto focus on growing organically

(03:24):
by posting consistently onsocial media and engaging your
audience and even using sometargeted ads.
We can still use ads and spendmoney on that, versus paying for
people that are fake or bots oranything like that.
So stay away from that.
Just because your numbers arebig does not mean that it's

(03:44):
actually turning your socialmedia into leads and into
clients.
Our next one is running adswithout a clear funnel.
I have done this on my own andit is a very bad tactic to do.
We want to avoid it becauseit's just um putting ads out
there without a strategy.

(04:05):
Right, when we're doing ads, wewant to make sure that we have
a funnel for them to go into.
An example of that would be my$99 social media course that I
have.
I will run an ad on that once amonth for about $100 to $200,
depending on how much I have inmy budget that month and I will
run that and make those peoplethat see the ad go into the

(04:27):
funnel and become a magnet, likeit becomes a lead magnet.
So they'll download my webinarfor free and then they'll go
into my email campaigns and thenthey'll be able to receive
those once a month and then alsothey're in a drip campaign for
the webinar itself and then thatleads them to purchasing the
course for $99.
So we need to just build abasic tunnel.

(04:50):
We want to build a basic funnelinstead of just running ads
with no funnel whatsoever.
Don't run an ad that says likecall now.
We want to run an ad that givesthem something for free so that
way we can capture theirinformation.
A lot of people are not justgonna call now or book a
consultation or something likethat.

(05:11):
The next one is reallyintriguing, because I don't
think that everyone agrees withme on this.
But stop trying to be on everyplatform.
Do what makes you feelcomfortable.
If you don't feel comfortablein front of a selfie on TikTok,
don't freaking do it.
If you don't feel comfortableposting front of a selfie on
TikTok, don't freaking do it.
If you don't feel comfortableposting on Instagram, don't do
it.

(05:31):
Now, facebook, that's a have to, but we don't have to be on
every platform to be successfulat marketing online.
I want you to feel comfortablewith what you're doing,
especially as a new business.
If you can't hire an agency todo your social media stuff, then
do what makes you feelcomfortable and what you have

(05:52):
the time for.
You need to just postconsistently.
That's all you have to do.
Pick one to two platforms, postconsistently, make sure that's
where your ideal customer ishanging out, and that is how you
do social media on your own atthe very beginning of the
business.
So stop trying to be on everyplatform and just do what makes
you feel comfortable and beconsistent and stay organic.

(06:16):
The next one is a very, veryhard lesson that I have learned
myself, and that is copyingcompetitors.
What works for their brand andtheir business may not work for
you.
They can all, like yourcustomers can also tell that
you're imitating and the trustwill drop because they'll be
like, oh wait, they're trying tobe like them, like that's
totally lame, like why can'tthey do their own stuff?

(06:37):
So, instead of copying whatyour competitor is doing, just
watch what they're doing.
Stay ahead of the trends,define your own voice and your
value and your audience and yourauthenticity will always win.
I used to think that I had tobe exactly like my competitor.
I had to have the same team.
I had to have the same I guesslike brand out there.

(06:57):
I needed to make sure mymessaging was the same, because
they appeared to be somebodythat was very like making a lot
of money.
They were very successful and Iwas like well, I wanna be that,
so why don't I just do whatthey're doing?
And I learned that lesson thehard way, and that's for a
different podcast.
Our next one is skip brand, likeif you skip branding and you

(07:20):
just jump right into a promotion.
So when you have a new business, you need to define what your
brand is.
That's through your logo,that's through your voice,
that's through your mission.
It will set the tone for everymarketing effort.
No one's going to remember ageneric business that just said
hey, we offer heating and airsolutions, or, hey, we build

(07:42):
websites.
Okay well, who are you Like?
Why should I trust you?
I just had this conversationwith a potential client and he
goes out and appraises $10million airplanes and yet his
face is nowhere to be seen onthe website and he goes oh well,
I guess I should do that.
I said yes because people needto know, like, who's coming out

(08:04):
to my plane?
Who am I hiring?
I want to know what hiscredentials are, because if I
don't trust him before Iactually talk to him, then I'm
never going to actually hire him.
So we need to make sure thatwhen we are branding our
business, that it will actuallybuild that trust with our
customers and we're not justjumping straight into you should
hire me.

(08:24):
You got to give them a reasonto hire you.
You got to give them somethingto build on.
Number six oof this one, thoughy'all Social media posting
without strategy, and this isspecifically talking about
overposting without strategy.
More content doesn't mean moreclients, and this is
specifically talking about overposting.
Without strategy, more contentdoesn't mean more clients.
I have had an argument with apast client about posting every

(08:46):
single freaking day on socialmedia.
Do not do it.
That is so annoying.
You can post in your story allday long, every single day.
Do not make your stagnant poston social media every single
freaking day.
People are going to be annoyedand it's going to just make your
strategy go down.
You can do a minimum of threeposts a week and be completely

(09:10):
fine with algorithm.
You can do that with a strategy.
You can do that using pillarsand batch creation and
scheduling it out smart.
Your quality of your post isbetter than your quantity, so
stop over posting and stopposting without a strategy.
So I talk a lot about socialmedia, but number seven is

(09:30):
relying only on social media.
Y'all, social media is just apart of your marketing plan.
You've got to get out there.
Build an email list networkwith people.
Make sure that you are becominga valuable asset into the
people that you are serving.
Make sure that you're buildingup that referral base for

(09:51):
customers that you've done workfor.
The algorithms are going tochange.
What if your account getshacked?
Your visibility is notguaranteed on social media and I
tell every single person thisthat hires me.
Social media is only a smallpart of your marketing plan and
I do not want you to rely onsocial media.
Do not think that one post isgoing to make you a million

(10:14):
dollars.
You may laugh about that, butsome people have that idea in
their head.
We want to avoid using genericstock images.
This is number eight y'all.
We want authentic brandingphotos.
Invest in yourself, invest inyour company.
Get some headshots made.
Do some product pictures, do abrand photography, a branding

(10:39):
shoot shoot.
Make custom canva designs.
Use your personal photos.
Do some behind the scenes.
People want to buy from peopleand not generic photos that you
get off the internet.
You may not feel comfortable inyour skin, you may not feel
comfortable in front of thecamera and I don't freaking care
.
I need you to make sure thatyou are using pictures of

(11:00):
yourself and pictures of yourbusiness so that way, people can
trust you before they buy fromyou.
Number nine y'all Ignoringanalytics.
No, ignoring analytics is not agood thing.
We want to make sure we look atour analytics every single
month, on every single platform,on every single marketing

(11:23):
effort that we do.
What's your website traffic?
What's your social media?
How's your ads going?
How many people are openingyour emails?
Let your data guide yourdecisions about marketing so
that way, you know what toinvest in in the future.
And the last thing is back tothinking that marketing is
social media only.
It will limit your tunnelvision.

(11:45):
You have to think outside thebox when it comes to social
media.
What's your website look like?
How's your SEO?
Are you doing email campaigns?
Are you doing targeted ads?
What about your signage on yourroad, on your storefront and
your PR?
Start with one strong channel.
Then layer it intocomplimentary strategies over

(12:06):
time.
So these are the top 10 thingsthat you need to avoid when
you're marketing your newbusiness and starting out small.
So after you listen to this, goover to Marketing Budget or
listen to another podcast thatmaybe you can layer on top of
this and learn.
Okay, this needs to be my nextstep.
All right, y'all catch you onthe next one.