Rookie Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

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!

Chapters

• 0:53 Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour
• 1:52 Avoid Buying Fake Followers
• 4:15 Create Clear Ad Funnels
• 5:42 Choose Platforms Wisely
• 6:42 Stop Copying Competitors
• 7:49 Don't Skip Branding
• 8:55 Strategic Posting Over Frequency
• 9:58 Marketing Beyond Social Media
• 10:45 Invest in Authentic Photos
• 11:33 Track Your Analytics
• 12:04 Diversify Your Marketing Approach

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Hey y'all, what's up? It's Shelby here with the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in again to listen and learn about marketing your small business, in whatever industry that you are in. Today, we are going to talk about marketing techniques to stay away from as a new business. There's so many things out there including things that I put out there about things you need to be doing as a small business. There's so many things out there, including things that I put out there about things you need to be doing as a small business, but there's not a lot about things you need to stay away from. So I thought, hey, let's talk about it today. Let's think about some stuff that I've done for my clients or I've done for myself and I've learned my lesson, and I want you guys to learn your lesson, or learn a lesson from me, before actually making these mistakes yourself. So we're going to go through 10 things today and we're going to talk about each one of them and maybe something that we can do instead of these things to stay away from. The first one is buying followers or engagement. Man y'all, back in the day when social media came around for businesses like Instagram and all that we used to be able to buy followers and, yes, we still can do that. But the problem with that is is the algorithms are too smart now. Instagram's too smart, meta's too smart. They know that you are buying those followers.

Speaker 1: 1:50

I actually have an example of this. Someone that I connected with a few years ago I'll say a few. Probably about four or five years ago, she asked me how she can get over 20,000 followers on her Instagram and I said, honestly, like it is a slow growth on Instagram because you know, you guys, y'all know that I'm all about organic growth and all that, and she didn't like to hear that. So she was like, well, I found, this way I can buy these followers and, um, get over 20,000. And I think her goal was to get over 20,000 because she wanted to be able to. I think it was like shop on Instagram or live on Instagram, something like that. It was whenever one of those, you had to have so many followers to actually be able to do that. And now I'm following her and I see her posting and, yes, she's got engagement. But I go and look at the likes and the people that are commenting and it's literally all 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 on our social media, how is that growing our business? How is that helping us do sales? All it does is make you look like you have all these followers and all of this engagement on your post, but it's not real. Like don't we want those people to be real, so that way they go and tell their friends or they share it to their story, or maybe they purchase our service or our product. That is why it is so important to focus on growing organically by posting consistently on social media and engaging your audience and even using some targeted ads. We can still use ads and spend money on that, versus paying for people that are fake or bots or anything like that. So stay away from that. Just because your numbers are big does not mean that it's actually turning your social media into leads and into clients.

Speaker 1: 3:49

Our next one is running ads without a clear funnel. I have done this on my own and it is a very bad tactic to do. We want to avoid it because it's just um putting ads out there without a strategy. Right, when we're doing ads, we want 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 a month for about $100 to $200, depending on how much I have in my budget that month and I will run that and make those people that see the ad go into the funnel and become a magnet, like it becomes a lead magnet. So they'll download my webinar for free and then they'll go into my email campaigns and then they'll be able to receive those once a month and then also they're in a drip campaign for the webinar itself and then that leads them to purchasing the course for $99. So we need to just build a basic tunnel. We want to build a basic funnel instead of just running ads with no funnel whatsoever. Don't run an ad that says like call now. We want to run an ad that gives them something for free so that way we can capture their information. A lot of people are not just gonna call now or book a consultation or something like that.

Speaker 1: 5:11

The next one is really intriguing, because I don't think that everyone agrees with me on this. But stop trying to be on every platform. Do what makes you feel comfortable. If you don't feel comfortable in front of a selfie on TikTok, don't freaking do it. If you don't feel comfortable posting front of a selfie on TikTok, don't freaking do it. If you don't feel comfortable posting on Instagram, don't do it. Now, facebook, that's a have to, but we don't have to be on every platform to be successful at marketing online. I want you to feel comfortable with what you're doing, especially as a new business. If you can't hire an agency to do your social media stuff, then do what makes you feel comfortable and what you have the time for. You need to just post consistently. That's all you have to do. Pick one to two platforms, post consistently, make sure that's where your ideal customer is hanging out, and that is how you do social media on your own at the very beginning of the business. So stop trying to be on every platform and just do what makes you feel comfortable and be consistent and stay organic.

Speaker 1: 6:16

The next one is a very, very hard lesson that I have learned myself, and that is copying competitors. What works for their brand and their business may not work for you. They can all, like your customers can also tell that you're imitating and the trust will drop because they'll be like, oh wait, they're trying to be like them, like that's totally lame, like why can't they do their own stuff? So, instead of copying what your 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 your authenticity will always win. I used to think that I had to be exactly like my competitor. I had to have the same team. I had to have the same I guess like brand out there. I needed to make sure my messaging was the same, because they appeared to be somebody that was very like making a lot of money. They were very successful and I was like well, I wanna be that, so why don't I just do what they're doing? And I learned that lesson the hard way, and that's for a different podcast.

Speaker 1: 7:16

Our next one is skip brand, like if you skip branding and you 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 every marketing effort. No one's going to remember a generic business that just said hey, we offer heating and air solutions, or, hey, we build websites. Okay well, who are you Like? Why should I trust you? I just had this conversation with a potential client and he goes out and appraises $10 million airplanes and yet his face is nowhere to be seen on the website and he goes oh well, I guess I should do that. I said yes because people need to know, like, who's coming out to my plane? Who am I hiring? I want to know what his credentials are, because if I don't trust him before I actually talk to him, then I'm never going to actually hire him. So we need to make sure that when we are branding our business, that it will actually build that trust with our customers and we're not just jumping straight into you should hire me. You got to give them a reason to hire you. You got to give them something to build on.

Speaker 1: 8:29

Number six oof this one, though y'all Social media posting without strategy, and this is specifically talking about overposting without strategy. More content doesn't mean more clients, and this is specifically talking about over posting. Without strategy, more content doesn't mean more clients. I have had an argument with a past client about posting every single freaking day on social media. Do not do it. That is so annoying. You can post in your story all day long, every single day. Do not make your stagnant post on social media every single freaking day. People are going to be annoyed and it's going to just make your strategy go down. You can do a minimum of three posts a week and be completely fine with algorithm. You can do that with a strategy. You can do that using pillars and batch creation and scheduling it out smart. Your quality of your post is better than your quantity, so stop over posting and stop posting without a strategy.

Speaker 1: 9:27

So I talk a lot about social media, but number seven is relying only on social media. Y'all, social media is just a part of your marketing plan. You've got to get out there. Build an email list network with people. Make sure that you are becoming a valuable asset into the people that you are serving. Make sure that you're building up that referral base for customers that you've done work for. The algorithms are going to change. What if your account gets hacked? Your visibility is not guaranteed on social media and I tell every single person this that hires me. Social media is only a small part of your marketing plan and I do not want you to rely on social media. Do not think that one post is going to make you a million dollars. You may laugh about that, but some people have that idea in their head.

Speaker 1: 10:19

We want to avoid using generic stock images. This is number eight y'all. We want authentic branding photos. Invest in yourself, invest in your company. Get some headshots made. Do some product pictures, do a brand photography, a branding shoot shoot. Make custom canva designs. Use your personal photos. Do some behind the scenes. People want to buy from people and not generic photos that you get off the internet. You may not feel comfortable in your skin, you may not feel comfortable in front of the camera and I don't freaking care. I need you to make sure that you are using pictures of yourself and pictures of your business so that way, people can trust you before they buy from you.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Number nine y'all Ignoring analytics. No, ignoring analytics is not a good thing. We want to make sure we look at our analytics every single month, on every single platform, on every single marketing effort that we do. What's your website traffic? What's your social media? How's your ads going? How many people are opening your emails? Let your data guide your decisions about marketing so that way, you know what to invest in in the future.

Speaker 1: 11:38

And the last thing is back to thinking that marketing is social media only. It will limit your tunnel vision. You have to think outside the box 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 your road, on your storefront and your PR? Start with one strong channel. Then layer it into complimentary strategies over time. So these are the top 10 things that you need to avoid when you're marketing your new business and starting out small. So after you listen to this, go over to Marketing Budget or listen to another podcast that maybe you can layer on top of this and learn. Okay, this needs to be my next step. All right, y'all catch you on the next one.