4 Stupid Marketing Mistakes Nearly Every Business Makes Online

The modern small business owner who goes online has more potential customers at their fingertips at a lower cost than any time in history. The fact is, the power of the internet, and the openness of the information makes it completely possible for the smallest one-person business at home to compete directly with the biggest corporations in the world.

The true challenge to the kitchen table entrepreneur is that with all the information instantly swarming to your desktop, you must not get misled. Of course, the big corporations suffer this too, but the effects of a mistake has far more impact on the small business owner with a tight budget than it does on the big corporation on a massive spending spree.

In the next few minutes, I’ll expose some of the biggest online marketing and advertising myths so you can be a more informed online business startup. This will help ensure you don’t follow a road of marketing anecdotes and hyperbole leading to disaster.

The 4 Big Mistakes of New Marketers (and Old)

First of all, if you have never been in business online, you should not get started without a mentor that is at least several steps ahead of you. The idea you will find some $7 product in an online forum to launch you to overnight success is “fools gold.” It’s beliefs like this that made the equipment retailer during the 19th century gold rushes the ones that made the most money and not the gold mining speculators.

You need a proven path, that is complete. The $7, $27, $47 products, at best, only show you a quick instance of something that likely worked in a particular situation. They don’t show you an entire business. To even expect they do is accepting an entire shipment of fools gold. Get a mentor with a plan that starts at the beginning. It costs a little more, but pays off big.

The second mistake is chasing the big marketing idea for the future when you’re just getting started. This is the road to disaster. When you first set up your business, you must be willing to realize you are not the market innovator when it comes to marketing and advertising online. You don’t need to be doing what people say is the future of online advertising and marketing.

You need customers today with what is working today. Your success begins with what is actually working and not with what is predicted to be working 2yrs, 3yr, or 5yrs from now. The future isn’t irrelevant to your planning, but it is irrelevant for you to succeed right now.

A common scare tactic in marketing by the scammers is to call everything “old school” and try to make you believe that because it was thought of or used 5, 10, 20 years ago or longer that it doesn’t work today. This could be true, but is far from being a general fact. In fact, it is generally wrong. Do some due diligence before falling for emotional line of thought.

The third mistake is believing you will be profitable in just weeks using free online advertising and traffic generating methods. This was possible in the past, but is so unlikely today, that if you plan your business by going this route, the only sound you’ll hear on your website is crickets chirping in the night.

Yes, free online traffic and advertising is great, and over the long term definitely can add 20 to 30 percent to your bottom line profits. The simple fact is, if you want to start profiting quickly, you need to buy advertising and traffic. You must learn how to do this correctly, and you can do it for pennies per visitor – literally.

Finally, you must learn to accept risk, accept failure, and be persistent with your marketing. Learn to test and track, and don’t quit just because something didn’t work today. Your competition loves when you quit easily. It means more sales for them, and less effort.

Do yourself a big favor and learn as much as you can about what works today. Use our free tools, webinars, and training programs to take what works today and build your business and future for tomorrow. Thanks for taking the time to join me.