14% of small businesses fail because they ignore their customers’ needs, while the same number fail because of poor marketing skills. (CBInsights)
Small business owners, especially those who aren’t experienced yet, unknowingly make mistakes that cost them customers over time!
This article discusses 5 top mistakes SMEs make and how to fix them.
- Incomplete social media profiles
- Inconsistent posting
- Zero customer service
- Thinking money will solve it all
- Having a robotic character.
1- Incomplete social media profiles
How often did you search for the brand’s location, website, number, or even an inquiry email address and find none?
You are telling interested customers that you don’t care or don’t have the time to fill your own business profiles!
Guess what? Your customers don’t have the time either to scour the internet for bits and pieces of information on your brand -(it’s probably not that good if they don’t have straightforward communication methods!)-
Customers want to know three basic information about you to follow you:
- Who are you, and what do you sell?
- What do you stand for as a brand?
- What’s your goal?
If those three things aren’t on your profile, they won’t follow you.
Setting up your profiles on social media platforms isn’t tricky, but it requires some focus; here’s what you need to focus on:
- Where is your audience? Select a maximum of 3 platforms that your audience mainly uses and establish a solid social media presence for your brand on these platforms.
- How does your competition represent themselves on each platform?, What are they missing, and what can you do better?
- What does your audience expect from you on each platform? Maybe on Instagram, they expect something, and on Twitter, they expect something different. You need to figure out what that is for your own business and how you want to represent it on social media.
2- Inconsistent posting
Being on social media means you’re in a committed relationship with your customers.
What makes relationships work? Communication, effective communication, to be precise!
And like in any relationship, it’s a give and take; you provide niche-related information, tips, and tricks, insights, on-trend posts, etc. in return, they engage on what you post by liking, commenting, sharing, and purchasing your products.
Once you go anywhere inconsistent with your posting, you are no longer in a give and take position, and your business will be forgotten in less than a day!
Keeping a consistent posting schedule with relevant and engaging content is the trick to successful online communication and community with your audience.
3- Zero Customer Service
Customers have comments to say, reviews to share, questions to ask, etc. Suppose you aren’t there to respond to their comments, messages, mentions, and emails. Then they’ll find another business to take them seriously!
Dedicate time in your schedule to reply to your customers on social media, especially the bad experiences and negative feedback comments; seek out those to make a point that you are a young business, keen on learning about its issues, and promise to work on them constantly.
Owning up to your business’s shortcomings is the sure way to win the trust of your customers back!
So don’t turn a shut eye on replying to your customers on social media.
4- Throwing money at the fire
Assume that your customer base on Instagram is 10K, and yet your posts are reaching around 2K; of that 2 K, only 100 people engage. Then you have an issue because the 10K you have aren’t doing anything for you, so you set a marketing campaign and have more people like your brand profile, thinking that the new 5K will be more interested! They turn out as uninterested as the previous 10K.
It’s not about the money you put in; it’s always quality over quantity. It would be best if you focused on:
- Understanding the personas of your target audience
- Improve your targeting skills in paid ads
- Test multiple ads to see which is performing the best
- Nurture your audience with industry-related information
Once you do all of that, the scales will start tipping towards you more.
5- Having a robotic character
Customers are looking for a human-digital interaction in this digital age, with a human being the essential component. So, lighten your brand and give it a voice and character on social media. Don’t think that by allowing your brand to have a personality, your customers will take you less seriously; having a personality and being professional aren’t mutually exclusive; it’s essential to have both.
You need to assess how your audience views your brand and the tweaks you can make to give it some character and stand out.
Here at Road9 Media, we have a dedicated team of marketing experts ready to give you tips and tricks, so you can book a consultation and give your business the boost it needs to succeed.
