The biggest myths about marketing

The biggest myth about marketing is that once you’ve marketed your product, clients will start  flying in by the thousands. 

Marketing is an essential part of every business. It’s exactly like the saying goes, if nobody knows about your product or your service, they wouldn’t be able to buy from you.

But there are so many lies told about marketing that is almost impossible to tell the lie from truth, until you’ve been bitten by a smooth-talking, cheating lying marketing agent who promised you the world, but only delivers a pile of ashes.

The challenge is finding a marketing platform that will work for your business, and it’s not always the platform the marketing salesperson recommends. Finding which one would work for you need research, commitment, and consistency.

Through the years I’ve observed many marketing trends and each one promises to be better than the last one. If you own a business with a limited marketing budget, it can be very disheartening when you see all the requirements to run an effective marketing campaign, when all you’ve wanted is to sell your services and your products and get clients. But instead, you get sold junk that you don't really need.

How do you tell the difference between the lie and the truth when you start marketing your services or your products, especially when you don’t know much about it?

It's not always easy, but here are some of the myths that you might hear when you start asking around.

Myth No.1: Marketing is a one size fits all

This is probably one of the biggest myths about marketing. Too many marketers sell their services based on previous success and will go into detail about how another business succeeded after using what they are now sharing with you. What works for someone else’s business won’t always work for you. 

Every business is unique and offers something that works for its specific customers. Even if you are in the same industry, it won’t always help you to copy someone else's marketing strategy because you operate differently, different people work for you, and you are not the same as the other business owner.

A good marketer will sit down with you and discuss the needs of your business and create a marketing strategy that will work for you. And only you. Copying is the biggest compliment, but even when you copy a marketing strategy you must still tweak it to be uniquely yours. 

Find your own unique way to market your service and your products by knowing what the competitor is doing, why it’s working, and how you can implement some of their strategies to suit your business.

Myth No.2: Once you’ve paid someone to do your marketing, the job is done.

Absolutely not true. Years ago we paid a marketer what was a small fortune for us. She promised us that all we have to do is sit back and let the money roll in. Well, it didn’t. One of the biggest mistakes any business owner can make is to completely rely on a marketing agency to promote your company. 

You must still tell people about what you do, and market your business. No one knows the business better than you, the business owner. Nobody can explain the product or the service better than you, the one who poured heart and soul into the business. You must continue marketing your business, even though you have someone doing it for you.

Many business owners have a business and private Facebook account to share information about the business with customers or to give quick updates. Use this platform. It gives potential and existing clients a more intimate look into your business. It's free and it gives you exposure. Just remember to keep it professional. Facebook is just one of many ways you, as the owner,  can market your business

Myth No.3: Marketing is a quick fix.

No, it’s not. Big corporations spend massive amounts of money on marketing to get create a brand that is easily recognisable, and it takes years and effort to establish your brand in the hearts and minds of people. Think McDonald's, Coca-cola, and First National Bank, one of the big five banks in South Africa.

When you start advertising your services or your product, it will take a while to see what works and what doesn’t. You have to learn what platforms will work, you have to be consistent, update your content regularly, and be prepared to change your strategy when it doesn’t work.

There is no quick fix for marketing. It’s all about trial and error because you won’t know how the customers will receive it until it’s done. And that takes time, effort, research, and money

Myth No.4: Marketing is cheap.

Marketing is one of the biggest business expenses. If you think you can spend two thousand rands and suddenly be visible everywhere, then you’ll be sorely disappointed. Marketing is expensive for most small businesses, and even more so for big companies. But they have the budget, whereas many small businesses are caught in a situation where they need the exposure to get clients and make money but they don’t have the money to pay for the exposure.

If you have deep pockets for marketing, then great! But if you don’t, you have to be realistic and don’t expect miracles when you’ve paid someone five thousand rands, which is almost three hundred US dollars at today’s exchange rate.

To start off with a good marketing campaign, you will need at least R15,000 per month. Marketing is not complex but it needs time, effort, and expertise, and that is what you are paying for. You are not just paying for the results. You are paying for the work that went into getting the results. The work you don’t see.

If you can’t afford marketing fees, then choose one social media platform, link it to your personal profile, and use that to market your products or services. Once again, even though it is free marketing you have to put in the effort. and the time.

Myth No.5: You have to be on every platform

There is no way you can be active and visible on every platform unless you have a team behind you. The bigger the team, the more you'll be able to achieve on these platforms.

Not all platforms work for all services. If you’re looking for insurance, are you going to look for it on Facebook?

If you're a plumber, would you advertise it on Instagram? Who’s going to look for a plumber on Instagram?

The platform you choose must work for what you’re selling. There is no need to be on every platform if you can’t keep up with even one.

Marketing trends come and go, and with every new popular platform, you will hear that you have to use it to be seen by everyone. When the internet started being available to everyone, the best thing you could do was to get a website. Then blogging became the next best thing and the whole world started blogging to advertise their services and tell their stories. Many platforms have come and gone and at some stage, each one suited the marketing needs at that time to be relevant. But don’t be swayed by the latest trend, unless it can work for you and you can do it consistently.

Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, WhatsApp, and Youtube are all great  digital marketing platforms that can work for your business, but you don’t have to be on all of them. Who knows how long it will be before even those platforms become outdated?

Just because it’s the latest trend doesn’t mean that it will work for you. This doesn’t mean that you must reject a new trend, just make sure that it is suitable for what you’re offering. Managing a social media account is a lot of work, but if you focus on just one, and get to know everything you possibly can about it, you will eventually become an expert at it. The rules of the platforms keep on changing, and if you are all over the place you’ll end up wasting precious time trying to figure out all the rules and best practices of all the platforms.

Instead, choose just one and build your business profile there.

Myth No.6: A viral video translates into sales

No, it actually doesn’t. Instead of wanting a video that will go viral, focus on improving your services and your products.

Having a viral video is a great confidence booster and will give you maximum exposure in a short space of time. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. Simply because it’s not aimed at your target market, and people watching and sharing are not always the ones who are interested in what you are offering. 
The other side is also that people will talk about what’s in the video and not about your business. If the focus of the viral video is something good about what you’re selling, and you have some clever branding in the video, then people might also talk about your business.

Nobody really knows what makes a video go viral but it does have something to do with emotions. It’s usually something that makes people feel warm and fuzzy or makes people very angry, or it can resonate with people because something that affects a lot of people is being addressed. Everybody hopes for a viral video that will put their business in the spotlight but just remember that many views, likes, and shares don’t mean more money coming into your business.

Myth No. 7: A good marketing strategy is all you need.

Have you ever seen a great feel-good ad about a certain shop, and then when you are there, the service is appalling? Many businesses fall into this trap.

It is of no use you are visible and everybody knows about you but your customer service stinks. Then you might as well take your marketing budget and flush it down the drain.

When you start developing a marketing strategy you must make your staff part of it. When you offer discounts and free gifts they must know about it to prevent unnecessary friction when a customer expects a free gift with certain purchases and your staff knows nothing about it because you didn’t inform them.

It will also stop customers from bamboozling your staff by demanding extra stuff that is not part of the special offers.

When you make your staff part of the marketing strategies they might even come up with better ideas on how to sell more products, and it will make things more exciting for them. Just imagine when you brainstorm in the mornings to come up with different strategies to increase sales how this can boost staff morale.

Too many business owners treat their workers badly and a customer can feel the negative vibes when they enter the shop or offices. If you treat your workers well, you already score big on marketing because they will make every client feel special and people would want to come back to you every time.

Marketing is to bring customers to your door but good service and quality products are what will them keep them coming back, and telling others about you.

This brings me to the next myth.

Myth No.8: The best marketing experts are the ones you have to pay

Many times business owners sit with gold in their businesses and you don’t know it. That gold is your employees, the people who work for you and who have a relationship with your customers. 

If you start asking their advice on what can be done to increase sales, you might be surprised at what they know and how cost-effective it can be. Your workers know what works and what doesn’t. They might be itching to try new ideas that will improve sales and grow your profits, but you are stopping them from doing exactly that because you never ask them for advice. And you don't create the space for them to share their opinions.

You might have a marketing guru in your business right now that can solve your marketing problems and take your business to the next level. Marketing might be a secret passion of one of your employees. Before you go the so-called experts ask your employees about their marketing ideas. The marketing answers you were looking for might be walking around in your business.

Myth No 9: Anyone can do marketing

Anyone can be a marketer but not anyone can do marketing. In the previous point, I suggested that you can get one of your employees to do your social media marketing. But it must become their full-time job, and only if it is something they want to do. Too many business owners take a random employee and choose that person to post on social media when they have a moment to spare. That is being cheap and it shows.

Next time when you are on social media look at the different business pages and see the difference between those that make a real effort when they post, and those who got a random employee to just post by the way. The difference will speak for itself.

Marketing on social media is not for everyone. You have to put in the effort, the time, and the research to get it right. Your social media accounts are a reflection of your business. If you can’t afford a marketing agency and have one of your employees do it, make sure that you allocate specific times that your employee does social media posts. You can't afford to make marketing a by the way thing when you’re not paying for it. You have to put time and effort into it if you want to see the rewards of it.

These are just some of the myths and lies of marketing that I’ve seen through the years.

Google, Facebook, Youtube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Tiktok are all very popular for marketing. You must just figure out which one works for you. And if you have a website, you must have a blog and use the right keywords for it to be visible when people search for the type of service or products that you sell.

Effective marketing is all about doing the little things consistently and with proper planning. In time you will see the rewards.

Let me know what other myths you’ve picked up and how you manage your marketing.

If you need help with your marketing strategy, you can send me an email at profitsandbooks@gmail.com.