11 Monstrous Small Business Marketing Mistakes and How To Avoid Them

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #1: Sinking a Fortune Into an Unproven Product

Is your business idea built on market research or a hunch?
Entrepreneurs often fall in love with their products or services before they determine if there’s a real market, and they throw fistfuls of money into the venture. If you, your spouse, your uncle, and your neighbor think you’ve got a winning idea, that’s simply not enough qualified input to run to the bank and drain your savings account!

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Conducting your detective work (research).
>>>Testing your business idea with the real marketplace.

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #2: Believing that, “If You Build It, They Will Come”

Do you think you have a product or service that will practically sell itself?
Trust me — you don’t.
There is a misconception among small business owners that, with the right product or service, your customers will simply “find” you when you open your doors for business. Whether you have a physical storefront on a corner lot in the busiest part of downtown, or a graphically pleasing online storefront offering easy access to your hot products and services, your customers will not find you if you do not market to them.
The day you open for business is the day you put on your “marketer’s hat” and never take it off. You must consistently move product, or schedule service time.
To stay in business you must profit.
To profit you must sell.
To sell you must market.
The good news is that, with a marketing strategy, you take the control out of your potential customers’ hands and put it into your own. If you have a product that will “practically sell itself,” then your marketing job will be easy. Just remember that the job must still be done.

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Defining your niche market and USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that differentiates you from your competition.
>>>Developing a marketing action plan and strategy to reach your niche market with your USP message.

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #3:  Trying to Reinvent the Wheel

Marketing is an age-old practice with some very basic principles. Yet, I’m sure you’ve read many marketing information products that stress the importance of being innovative and creative with your marketing efforts. It’s easy to get caught up in the innovation process and forget that the REAL focus should be on results.

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Emulating success instead of trying to create something completely new. Please note that I am not saying, “copy” what others are doing. Look at the basic structure of a tactic, campaign, advertisement, or event and use the same formula as a basis for developing your own tactics.
>>>Realizing great marketing ideas are used over and over again with just the right twist to make them fit a specific business. Focus on results, and choose imitation over innovation to create your own twist on a proven, winning technique.

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #4: Over-Preparing and Doing Nothing

The fear of failure can be powerful. So powerful that we do everything we can think of to prevent it. Yet, there is a point at which we are so busy preparing, organizing, and researching to prevent failure that we never get around to the actual marketing of the business. Here are two things to remember:

1. Activity is not productivity.
2. In order to sell a million of something, you have to sell the first ONE.

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Doing something! If you believe in your business and have done your detective work, it’s time to dive into the marketing pool. Start small, track results and build from there.
>>>Not being afraid to make a mistake. Mistakes are the entry to success. At the very least, a failed promotion means you have SUCCESSFULLY determined what promotion does not work. And, to learn what does NOT work is a valuable tool in getting you closer to discovering what WILL work. So, go ahead. Fail a little. It will make your eventual successes even sweeter.

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #5: Boredom

When I was working for an ad agency many years ago, I had one client that was running an extremely successful ad campaign. After about six months, I received a phone call from the client. He wanted to develop an entirely new campaign. When I asked, “why?” he simply said, “I’m bored with the one we have.”
What?
That client may have had the money to spend on a new campaign due to “boredom” but you and I usually don’t. Yet, I’ve often seen my small business clients switch promotions for the same reason. This is detrimental to your business!
“Losing money” is a reason.
“Boredom” is not.

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Remembering that, what is old to you, is new to an untapped target market. If you have a promotion that is consistently getting you results, stick with it until results show you its time for change.
>>>Testing new promotions without abandoning the current one. Then track results. Never swap a current promotion with a new one that hasn’t been tested.

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #6:  Relying on Networking to Generate Sales Leads

Joining the Chamber of Commerce and schmoozing at association meetings can put you in contact with vendors and possible joint venture partners, and will be invaluable exposure for you as a community supporter – but it will rarely generate substantial sales leads.
Everyone else who attends these “meet and greet” assemblies is there to do the same thing you are. You may be able to make some valuable contacts for future ventures and promotions, but one-on-one networking is time-consuming and results are unpredictable.

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Treating networking opportunities the same as any other marketing tactic. Track results by determining your costs and measuring your payback.

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #7:  Doing What Your Competitors Do

It’s important to be aware of what your competitors are offering, but do not let it dictate the strategy you use for your own business.
If your competitor wants to be the low price leader, let him. Don’t try to become the “lower price” leader. Chances are this will lead you to financial problems because it will thrust you into an ugly price war.
If your competitor wants to tout low prices, then you focus on value. Bargain hunters don’t necessarily want the lowest price. They want the best VALUE.  Make what you have to offer something of value.

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Finding an unmet need or want of your target market, and fill it to differentiate your products and services from your competitors.
>>>Giving customers a reason to choose you over your competitors. Define your USP (Unique Selling Proposition), and identify your niche market.

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #8: Not Targeting a Specific Market

If you believe your market is “everybody,” you will struggle to attract people who will buy from you. The value of target (niche) marketing is one of the toughest sells I make to my clients. They understand the logic of it, but the “fear of losing a potential customer” gets the best of them.

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Viewing the practice of niche marketing as inclusive, not exclusive.

Think of your business as part of a person’s support group. It’s logical to say, “Everybody needs a support group so my business should attract everyone.” But, will it? People – your customers – want to go to a support business that understands their specific concerns, needs, and wants. Make sure you ARE that business by targeting a niche market.

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #9: Targeting a Market You Can’t Reach or One That Can’t Afford You

Targeting a niche market is the smartest way to market. Yet, targeting a market that is too specific will limit your ability to succeed long term. For example, a market that might be too specific would be: female pilots under the age of 35 who fly ONLY New York to London flights. That’s a pretty narrow market to sustain your business in the long term unless you can capture the ENTIRE market with a product or service that has a high profit point and customers need to use or replace it often.
In that same vein, a market that is begging for the service or product you have but cannot afford it will also be a business impossible to sustain. Never compete for someone’s rent money. Your target market must have the means to buy your products and services.

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Creating your customer profile to identify characteristics of your potential buyers,
>>>Identifying a niche market,
>>>Examining the long term potential for new and repeat sales.

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #10: Focusing On Acquiring New Customers Instead of Promoting to Current or Previous Customers

When you first start a business you have little choice but to focus on gaining new customers. The cost of finding those new customers can be expensive, which is one reason it is so important to really target a specific niche. However, once you’ve made just one sale, you’re ready to start looking at other marketing options.
Wouldn’t you like to:
… slash your marketing costs by half or more?
… reach proven buyers for your service or products?
That little goldmine of proven buyers available to you “on the cheap” is already yours in the form of current and previous customers.
Any respected marketing guru, past or present, online or offline, will tell you that the biggest asset your company has is your customer base.

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Realizing that, when a sale is finalized, it is the beginning of your relationship with that customer, not the end.
>>>Offering additional products or services to current customers. If you don’t have your own to offer them, then develop a referral, joint venture or product bundling program so you can reap profits from your already-interested (and buying) customers.

MONSTROUS Marketing Mistake #11: Not Systematically Following Up on Leads

The least expensive part of business is making the sale. The most expensive is generating leads – finding the people who are interested in what you have.
Once you find people who express an interest in what you have to offer – whether they buy from you or not – you MUST develop a follow up system that will keep marketing to those interested prospects. A person who has expressed interest in your products and services is far more likely to eventually buy from you than someone who did not respond at all!

Avoid this mistake by:

>>>Curbing the tendency to become obsessed with generating more leads until you have exhausted the ones you already have.
>>>Developing an easy, systematic follow up for leads, designed to convert a “maybe” into a “yes.”

Paper Fires Reporter for Being Insufficiently Monstrous

Unsatisfied with merely maligning the memory of its freshly deceased editorial page editor by gratuitously reporting the embarrassing details of his death, the editors of the Portland Oregonian have now seen fit to fire a woman for the crime of trying to protect the family of her departed friend.

The folks at the Oregonian must have really hated their colleague Bob Caldwell. First, the paper reported the sordid—and totally irrelevant—details of his fatal heart attack, which involved dropping dead after a "sex act" with a community college student forty years his junior whom he had been furnishing with books, school supplies, and cash in exchange for sex. And now it has fired editor Kathleen Glanville for lying to the paper's reporters about what happened to Caldwell after learning the shocking details from his grieving wife.

As Granville put it an a Facebook post yesterday, "I was fired this afternoon because in the midst of great sorrow for the loss of my dearest friend, I did not share with the paper the embarrassing details of his death, which I knew only because of my close relationship with his wife." According to Oregonian editor Peter Bhatia, it's a little more complicated than that. Granville actually lied to an Oregonian staffer—on a phone call while she was standing in Caldwell's home and comforting his grieving widow—telling him that Caldwell had died in his car while running errands. When the paper learned the truth, Bhatia wrote, he was faced with a "no-win choice." Eager to avoid accusations of a "cover-up," he chose to not win by publishing the non-criminal non-pertinent details, as opposed to by letting another paper do the (important!) work of kicking his co-worker's corpse. (This despite the fact that he decided not to report Caldwell's totally criminal, totally pertinent DUI arrest two years ago.)

And now he's fired Granville. To be clear, lying to your newspaper colleagues as a source in a news story is a serious offense. But if there was ever a time when it was understandable and forgivable, this was it. Transparency is an extremely good and extremely important value to adhere to.

Monstrous Medicine: China’s Human Baby Flesh Pills for Curing All Diseases

What the hell is going on? Would you believe that China’s Human baby Flesh Pills are spreading all around the world with a promise of curing all known diseases? Yeah it is quite a true story just unveiled by the Daily Mail today. The post begins with the introduction of a woman who works in a Chinese Hospital and tries to sell these monstrous human baby flesh pills to a patient with a promise that by taking two tablets a day he will get rid of all ills just within a week.

Horrible Medicine: Pills Made of Human Baby Flesh

The site reports that the woman drawn out these horrible pills from her fridge but in spite of freezing, the unpleasant smell of human flesh was spread all around the room. But the woman was consistently insisting her patient by convincing him with: ‘Choose one. Please, choose one.’

No doubt, the pills made up of the flesh of human fetus sounds very disturbing and odd, but it is a fact that the South Korean customs department has recently revealed that in their 35 attempts to stop the smuggling of ‘human-flesh pills’ across its border and seized more than 17,000 of them from China in just 09 months.  These pills were human flesh pills were being smuggled.

Horrifying: A pharmacist shows fetus to undercover reporters

Across the country in passengers’ luggage or through parcels registered as traditional Chinese herbal medicines.

The Daily Mail Notes;

This grotesquely unsavory industry appears to cash in on China’s strict family planning laws, which limit most families to just one child each and are said to result in 13 million abortions a year, the equivalent of more than 35,000 terminations a day. 
The country, which has a population of more than 1.3 billion, is said to have ‘dying rooms’ in hospitals where unwanted newborn babies are abandoned to perish. Those trying to avoid a huge fine for violating the one-child laws have even been known to commit outright infanticide.

Now, dishonest pharmacists, hospital workers and even the relatives of those having abortions are earning handsome bucks from ancient myths that consuming infant cells can cure and make us younger enough again.
This belief is linked with hundreds of years old China’s Ming dynasty based on the myth that a human fetus nearer to its birth date contains all curing elements to all known illnesses.

Actually, the horrible business of China’s human-flesh pills was truly uncovered by the team from South Korea’s SBS television channel which first highlighted the problem with full force of its investigating resources.

Sorry guys, I am so shocked and can’t write further on China’s Human Baby Flesh Pills ……Where the humanity is? Does humanity actually exist? The man can do just everything for some dirty bucks? OMG!

 

How to Make Monstrous Bubbles

Blowing bubbles is a fun activity for children and adults. Have a contest to see who can blow the biggest bubble. Watch others while they blow bubbles, then whip out your large bubble wand to make monstrous bubbles that will amaze everyone. For best results, you may need to make your own bubble solution; you need a lot of solution for a monstrous bubble. 

Things You'll Need

• Water
• Measuring cup
• Large tub or container

Instructions

Make the Bubble Solution:

1. Pour 12 cups of water into a large tub or container. A good option is a plastic child's wading pool.

2. Stir in 1 cup of liquid dish washing soap. Stir slowly; you do not want to create bubbles at this point of the process.

3. Pour in 3 tbsp. to 4 tbsp. of glycerin. This helps keep the bubbles from popping easily.

 

4. Let the mixture sit at least four hours; overnight is better. It helps the mixture to meld together completely.

Different Wands

5. Straighten the hooked part of a wire clothes hanger. You may need to use pliers to achieve this step. Stretch out the remainder of the hanger until it is a rough circle. You can also create other shapes if you wish. Dip the circular part in the soap mixture and wave it in the air to make bubbles.

6. Pour the bubble mixture into a large plastic lid; pour it until it just barely overflows, so you know it is completely full. Place your straw into the mixture and gently blow. Continue to blow until you have used all the bubble mixture in the lid. Keep the straw inside the bubble at all times so you can continue making it larger.

7. Place a Hula Hoop into the soap mixture. Swish it around slowly so it gets completely covered with the soap mixture. Pick the hula hoop up and wave it through the air gently.