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According to U.S. Bank’s 2025 Small Business Survey, the top three stressors for small business owners are:
- Economic environment (98%)
- Competition (92%)
- Inflation or increased costs of materials and supplies (92%)
To stand out among similar brands and secure customer loyalty amid economic volatility, you need to revamp your marketing strategy. This guide explores common marketing mistakes small businesses make — and how you can avoid them to build a sustainable customer base.
1. Overpromising and Underdelivering
While strong marketing requires emphasizing your product or service’s strengths, exaggerating their value, or otherwise fabricating the truth, about your offerings can erode customer trust over time — and make your business look dishonest.
How To Avoid This Mistake
- Set realistic expectations. Clarify your business’ typical pricing, stock levels, shipping times, and service quality while acknowledging any deviations from the norm. For example, let’s say you run an e-commerce business. You typically ship items within two to three business days, but one of your most popular items is on backorder, and you’re unsure exactly when it will ship. Instead of using absolute language like “We always ship items within two to three business days,” mention the delay and an estimated timeline.
- Keep accurate inventory records. As Bottle POS explains, with real-time inventory tracking, “You can see exactly what you have in stock at a glance to answer customers’ questions, make more informed decisions, and reorder your bestsellers before a stockout strikes.” Invest in a point of sale (POS) solution that empowers you to provide accurate inventory updates to your customers.
- Be transparent. Mistakes happen, but it’s how you handle them that matters. If your business experiences severe shipping delays, product shortages, or other related issues, address them immediately. Send customers an email explaining the situation, and if applicable, offer discounts, product substitutions, or credit toward future purchases to show accountability.
2. Ignoring Your Target Audience
Every business has its own niche. Instead of running generic campaigns that don’t resonate with customers, take the time to understand your target audience and customize your marketing communications to their needs.
How To Avoid This Mistake
- Build customer personas. Define your ideal customers’ core characteristics, including demographics, income, lifestyle, buying habits, and motivations. For example, a pet store owner may develop different customer personas for first-time pet owners, budget-conscious shoppers, and people with multiple pets.
- Collect customer data. Gather information on your current customer base to better understand your audience and how you can best tailor your messaging to them. Deep Sync’s data marketing guide recommends collecting a combination of zero-party, first-party, second-party, and third-party data for a holistic view of your customers.
- Segment your audience. Once you deepen your understanding of your customers, sort them into relevant groups and send communications that resonate with each segment. For instance, you may segment customers based on purchase history, sending frequent shoppers new product updates and sharing discounts with less frequent customers to encourage them to make a purchase.
3. Bombarding Customers with Communications
Staying in touch with customers keeps your business top of mind and helps earn their loyalty. However, excessive touchpoints can overwhelm your audience and turn them away.
How To Avoid This Mistake
- Prioritize quality over quantity. When you send less frequent, highly valuable messages, customers are more inclined to open and engage with your content. Focus on creating strong headlines, imagery, and calls to action that pull customers in and encourage them to convert.
- Respect customer communication preferences. Survey customers to discover whether they prefer you to contact them via email, direct mail, or text message. Give them options for how often they’d like to hear from you, such as weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Store this information in your customer relationship management platform (CRM) to align your communication strategy with this data.
- Use automation. Did you know that 55% of small business owners already use artificial intelligence (AI) tools? While there are many ways your business can leverage AI, using automation to trigger messages based on certain customer actions allows you to send communications when they’re truly relevant. For example, if a customer adds an item to their online cart and abandons it, you may set up an automation to trigger an email that reminds them to check out.
4. Inconsistent Branding
Imagine your favorite brand’s logo is green and yellow on social media, but when you venture to their website, the entire design features red and blue. You’d likely be pretty confused and wary of purchasing from this company.
Barring time-sensitive branding changes to reflect holidays, current events, or company anniversaries, your branding should stay consistent across channels to promote brand recognition and retain customer trust.
How To Avoid This Mistake
- Create brand guidelines. Develop a style guide that covers your brand’s logo, colors, fonts, imagery style, and tone. Distribute these branding guidelines to your staff members and partners to keep communications consistent.
- Audit marketing materials. Review your website, social media, email, and other marketing materials regularly to catch any branding inconsistencies. Be especially vigilant after any rebranding or style updates to keep everything aligned.
- Use templates. Create templates for your email newsletters and social media posts to promote consistency. Having a template to work from will also save team members time that they can devote to other initiatives.
5. Overusing Discounts
When used sparingly, discounts can attract new customers and encourage sales. However, discounting items too much or too often may cause customers to only buy when products are on sale, limiting your profit margins and cheapening your brand.
How To Avoid This Mistake
- Implement discounts strategically. Center discounts around holidays, slow seasons, or new product launches. When discounts are limited, customers will be more excited and likely to purchase when the time comes, as opposed to if they occur often or haphazardly.
- Explore alternatives. Decreasing prices isn’t the only option for encouraging purchases. Consider bundling different products for a lower overall price, incorporating value-adds like free shipping, and offering exclusive experiences and events for loyalty members.
- Track discount return on investment (ROI). Leverage analytics from your POS system to determine whether discounts actually increase profitability or conversions. Compare the results from different promotions, and focus on those that are most effective.
While these marketing strategies should set you up for success, every business is different. Listen to your customers and continuously collect their feedback on your marketing approach so you can align it with their needs and preferences.
