Not Penetrating Your Market? 5 Critical Mistakes Even Smart Entrepreneurs Make

If you’ve been marketing and no one is buying, it’s a clear indication your marketing is not making an impact on your business’ bottom line. In business there are specific things you must do to ensure you penetrate your market. Most entrepreneurs “take a stab” at marketing instead of identifying a systematic way to share their products and services with their ideal clients. That is where they go wrong.

While marketing is not a science, it is strategic. At least, it should be strategic if you want to make an impact with it. Successful entrepreneurs are not “willy-nilly” marketers; in addition to being strategic they are also clear, concise and consistent.

So why aren’t your “marketing efforts” penetrating your market?

The quick and dirty answer is the “marketing” you are doing is not reaching those you want to serve and more than likely it’s because you’re making one of the following mistakes:

1. Mistake 1: You’re unclear on your ideal clients. An Audience of One can help you to avoid this mistake. An Audience of One is one type of person with one distinct problem that you offer one complete and robust solution for via your products and services. The problem with not taking the time to get crystal clear about who you can best serve with your products and services is that you miss the mark on using your marketing to speak immediately to them and their problems. Remember that people in pain are actively seeking a pain killer. If you know who they are, what they’re struggling with and what they need to stop struggling, you can position your marketing to get them to take the next step with you.
2. Mistake 2: You’re inconsistent with your marketing. Writing an article or sending an e-zine every once in a while does not a marketing strategy make. If you want to be seen as an expert, you must consistently appear in various forms to your Audience of One.  You must create a marketing calendar and design the various strategies you will employ to get the attention of your audience. Keep in mind it takes on average eight impressions before someone perceives you as a credible person who might possibly be able to help. If it takes that long to create a level of trust, by not consistently speaking to your market, you are lengthening the prospect cycle.

3. Mistake 3: You’re not using the 3 E’s of Magnetic Marketing: Education, Experience and Emotion. The 3 E’s of marketing means that your marketing materials and copy will focus on ensuring three things: creating an experience, educating your audience and evoking an emotional response from them. It is proven that when your marketing does all three, you position a purchase from your audience. Education means you provide tons of value and content that illustrates your expert status. Experience means that from the very beginning you create an environment where they feel inspired and ready to solve the problem once and for all. Your customer service, your communications, etc., are designed to create a favorable experience amongst your audience. Emotion means you pull on the pain in such a way that the response is one of emotion. You help people to feel that in working with you, they will increase their happiness and fulfillment. They will reduce stress, reduce anxiety and stop the pain.  You help them to connect to the vision of what their life will be like and how they will feel when the problem has been solved. One’s feelings create beliefs and those beliefs either create action or excuses, but it all starts based on how a person feels. If your marketing can tap into these feelings, you are positioning your products and services for purchase.
4. Mistake 4: You’re not highlighting the problem you can solve. Perhaps you’d rather focus on the solution in your marketing. While that is an option, it will just take you longer to make an impact. Pleasure is delightful and creates warm fuzzies in the minds of your audiences but it seldom creates a sense of urgency. Pain on the other hand, moves the one in pain to find a pain killer. They will do anything, pay anything to stop the pain. Pain-based marketing is much more attractive and leads prospects to a solution much faster. When you position your solution strategically using your marketing people will buy, and buy quickly.
5. Mistake 5: You don’t have an effective call to action. While it’s been said that you can lead them to the water but you can’t make them drink, I tend to believe that if you tell them how to drink, they will. And what better way to do this than through your marketing. You have to assume that common sense isn’t that common and tell your audience how to engage in your products and services. And, you may have to tell them more than once in more than one way. Be sure your call to action includes all pertinent information that will help them get to the exact place (your website sales page) to purchase your solution.

Taking the time to solve these critical mistakes with your marketing will give you a significant lift in your ability to close clients, sale product and solve major problems for your ideal clients.

“Business optimization strategist, Darnyelle A, Jervey, is CEO of Incredible One Enterprises, a business consulting and coaching firm that helps entrepreneurs and business owners realize financial and spiritual abundance. Jervey is an award-winning coach, consultant, strategist and a best-selling author with 7 books to her credit, including her latest projects: “Burn the Box: 7 Breakthrough Strategies for Standing Up, Stepping In and Igniting Success” and “Market Like a R.O.C.K. Star.” Jervey may be reached online at www.incredibleoneenterprises.com.