![White door floating in sky "1 Mistake can lead to...the dusk sector"](https://www.poweruponlinepromotions.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/James-Katie-1024x768.png)
A Small Business Marketing Mistake Can Be Scary…
Seeing as how we’re in spooky season, this month POP is doing something a little different with our blog. What follows are three cautionary tales of a scary small business marketing mistake.Â
Marketing is tough work, particularly when you try to do it on your own. There are marketing mistakes you can make without realizing youâre making them. You may even dabble in something unethical without realizing it, taking your business to a dark place.
While zone might be an appropriate description of the twilight-like place on the edge of failure where these business-owners found themselves, weâre going to use a different description, words that better reflect business⊠and arenât trademarked.Â
And now, 3 episodes of business owners who each took a wrong turn.
Be careful to follow marketing best practices or you might find yourself on a oneway trip toâŠThe Dusk Sector.Â
A Small Business Marketing Mistake at the Dawn of the Internet
July 1998. Armageddon is killing it at the box office. For the first time in history Secret Service agents are being subpoenaed in an investigation and Brandy and Monicaâs âThe Boy is Mineâ is number one on the charts.Â
Itâs also very hot. Which should be making fledgling beach gear company Beaching Out a success. But Founder Bill Saunders is not having the summer bump in business he was expecting. Now heâs in a coffee shop having to explain it to his best friend, and major investor, Larry Jenson.Â
âIâm getting worried. Was this a bad investment?â Larry asked.
Bill was silent at first. He had talked Larry into putting his savings into the company. And he had been sure the world wide web would be bringing them lots of business this summer. But here they were. Despite all the work heâd put into building the website and the ads heâd bought on overture.com. Maybe he could buy some ads from MSN tooâŠ
âWould you say something? Iâm freaking out Bill!â
Larryâs anxious tone cut through the drone of the radio in the coffee shop. âBackstreetâs Back Alright!â Bill rolled his eyes at the familiar chorus. What do they mean back? Heâd never heard of them before! Now his daughter wouldnât shut up about them. Yesterday he couldnât get on his computer until late because she was on a fan siteâŠ
It was at that moment that the seed of Billâs small business marketing mistake was planted.Â
Bill banged on the table triumphantly startling Larry backward and getting an irritated look from the barista.Â
âI know how to get people to our site.â
âOur site?â Larry was not really up on the internet lingo yet. Bill had always been the more technical one and the savvy marketer.
âYes, our website. And when theyâre at our site, theyâll buy our products.â
âOk. How?â
âThe Backstreet Boys.â
âWhat?!â
âYes, and Brandy, and Monica and everything else people are talking aboutâŠâ
âBill, I am not following youâŠâ Larry was incredulous and confused.
âThink about it! What is everybody talking about? Theyâre talking about music. Right? Â Theyâre talking about movies. Right?! Theyâre talking about Presidential scandal. And what theyâre talking about, theyâre searching for. So we just need to put the most popular search terms onto our website!â
âWonât that be confusing when weâre selling beachwear products?â
Bill shook his head.
âNo because Iâll color the text the same color as the background. Visually it wonât say anything. But when they look for the terms, theyâll find us!â
In short order, Larry had agreed and John got to work. He added Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, The Backstreet Boys and everything he could think of to each product page of his website.
And it worked. In short order they were getting more web visitors than theyâd ever experienced. The problem was the sales were only going up a bit.Â
Then one day he wasnât getting any readers at all. The end of Beaching Out was nigh and he had a lot of people that he needed to explain it to. But he couldnât even understand it himself.
Bill’s Epilogue
![Black Hat SEO: Huge Small Business Marketing Mistake](https://www.poweruponlinepromotions.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/A-BIG-small-business-marketing-mistake-1024x576.png)
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Times change, itâs true. And with timeâs changing, so does the internet. But one thing remains the same. When you bet against the algorithm, the algorithm always wins.Â
Bill knew just enough to be dangerous. He was right that having popular search terms would make people more likely to go to his page, particularly in the early days of the internet. What didnât occur to him was that when people didnât find what they were looking for, they would get angry and leave. And they might even report him.
Where John erred was trying to trick the search engine instead of organically growing his traffic. Itâs what we in the marketing business call Black Hat SEO, after the bad cowboys in old movies.Â
Today the search engines have only become smarter. Black hat SEO, does not work. The best way to rank  high on google and other search engines is to write material that your audience wants to read and present it honestly.Â
A Small Business Marketing Mistake We Can All Relate To
A time and city not unlike our ownâŠÂ
Arthurâs Diner had been open for a few months and heâd been doing ok. He hadnât quite caught the publicâs attention yet but customers who came to eat, came back. As the owner and manager Arthur always asked his customers about their experiences and worked to improve any issue that came up. He gave feedback to his servers and managed them well.Â
As the head chef, Arthur knew his food was excellent and continued to adjust the menu as he learned about patronsâ tastes.Â
But then the sickness began.
A virus had begun to spread through the population. And people were no longer going out to eat as much. Arthurâs diner began to institute safety precautions, but some patrons bristled at it, even taking their anger out on his young staff. Morale was low, employees were nervous and business was down.
As dining out became less popular, Arthur instituted a takeout and delivery program. The problem was no one knew about it. Jesse, one of his teenage employees told him he needed to start promoting himself online.Â
Arthur had never been a fan of Facebook, Twitter, or any of that stuff but he knew he needed to try something. He spoke to one of his patrons about it and he happened to be a marketer. But when he heard about the cost, he didnât think it was for him. With the amount of money that heâd have to pay monthly, he could pay an employee for a week. Arthur decided to do it himself.
It wasnât easy at first. But Arthur learned how Facebook and all the rest worked. He even bought a better camera so his food photography would look better.Â
Soon he was getting lot of likes! Then he was getting shares and then he started getting phone calls.Â
In just a few months he had built a Facebook followingâŠbut then he started getting comments. Arthur’s small business marketing mistake was about to become clear.Â
âStaff didnât seem to care that I was there and my food was cold by the time I got it.âÂ
âI saw this place on Facebook and the food looked great! But looks can be deceivingâÂ
âThe chicken was overcooked and the French fries were soggyâ
âI used to work at a restaurant and I know what oil tastes like when it hasnât been changed out soon enough!âÂ
âOne word: meh.â
âThis canât be!, â Arthur thought. He immediately began typing out a defense. Then he noticed a smell. Something was burning.Â
Arthur sprang up and rushed to the  kitchen. Luckily there was no fire. Just a kabob left on a bit too long. He let out a sigh of relief. But thenâŠ
He realized the kitchen was not in the order it should have been in. He spoke to his cooks about cleaning up their stations. While he was at it, he tasted some of the veggies. They were under seasoned. He tried a fry. The oil in the fryer had been left in too long. And it dawned on himâŠthe reviewers were right.
In his effort to promote his diner, Arthur had taken his eyes off of the road. He had brought customers in but stopped paying attention to what he was bringing them to â what he was good at and he cared the most about â his product.Â
He only hoped it wasnât too lateâŠ
Arthur’s Epilogue
DIY can lead to DIEâŠing, er, not literally hopefully. But doing it all for yourself is not a sustainable business model. Bill’s small business marketing mistake is one most business owners have fallen on from time though not always in the sector of marketing.
When you need a product shipped from across the country to your business, do you drive over to pick it up? If you have a cavity, do you fill your own tooth? The answer in both cases, (I really hope) is no. So why on earth would you do your own marketing?Â
The point is, we live in a specialized society. Interdependence can be scary but itâs not a bad a thing. Itâs what our country runs off, at least economically.Â
There are times when it makes sense to DIY. Maybe you really enjoy building so renovating your store is something you really want to do on your own. If you are an excellent writer who used to run a marketing department, and have a lot of time it probably makes sense to do your own marketing.Â
But for most businesses, most of the time, it makes more sense to hire a professional so that you can focus on your own business. Otherwise, you might end up in the Dusk Sector.Â
Jo’s Journey – Not Asking for Good FeedbackÂ
Jo’s Journey begins in the early naughts when she was still a young girl. We’ll begin with her there and follow her all the way to the Dusk Sector…
Josephine had always loved hair.
When she was a child, she used to brush and style the hair of her sisters and cousins. By the time she was 13, even her Dad let her cut his hair.
And as she got to high school she knew she wanted to go into the cosmetology program. There she learned a lot but she also learned that she already knew a quite a bit. Then she learned confidence.Â
After she graduated she got a job at a salon where she had dozens of happy customers. And after years of working for someone else, she had saved up enough to open her own business. It was nothing big â a booth in a shop- but it was hers and it bore her name, Jo’s Hair Hut.
Many of her customers followed her over.
They were just as happy there. She was beginning to do a good job running her own business and she was continuing to do a good job cutting hair.Â
Mrs. Crain, an older client of hers who had followed her all the way from cosmetology school told her one day. âJo, I am so proud of you! Look at all youâve done! I gave you a five star review on google!â
Jo thanked her profusely and told her how much she appreciated her business.
âYou know,â sweet Mrs. Crain said, âI was the only review you had. You need to start asking more clients for them. I know everybody leaves happy!â She shook her finger sternly at her while she spoke but she was smiling.Â
Josephine was not comfortable requesting reviews. Besides, her small customer base was growing on its own through referrals. She didnât need to grow too fast.
But then one day it wasnât. She didnât lose her old clients but she didnât have new ones coming. She couldnât figure out why until one new client told her âYou know I almost didnât come here because of what it said on Google but I love my cut. Thank you!â
Josephine was perplexed. The last time sheâd  checked she had a five star rating based on Mrs. Crainâs 5 star review.
As soon as the client left, Jo Googled her business. Sure enough, there was Mrs. Crain âs review. She had lots of nice things to say as always. But her average rating was 2.5 star. Because now there was a second review â and this one was 1 star. And it was only two words âBad attitude.â
Jo couldnât figure out why someone would say that. She didnât recognize the name. How could 1 bad review have such a major impact?
![Empty Hair Salon](https://www.poweruponlinepromotions.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/dreamstime_xl_31913544-768x503.jpg)
Jo’s Epilogue
Good reviews may not seem important until you get a bad one. And unhappy clients are always more talkative than those who had a great experience.Â
If you have over one hundred 5-star reviews, 1 negative review wonât have to large of an impact. But if you only have 2 reviews and 1 of them is negative, well thatâs half your customer feedback. Itâs even worse if you have more bad reviews than good.Â
Make sure that you encourage your happy customers to write you reviews. Even if they donât seem important now, you never know when you will need them.Â
Without a large portion of reviews with happy customers singing your praises one bad one, be it from someone in a bad mood, a person you made a mistake with, or even a competitor can send you into the search engine Dusk Sector.Â
Final Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed these tales and that you weren’t too terrified.Â
Each of these individual business owners made a small business marketing mistake that set their business back. Each of them also could have avoided it by seeking out expert advice or marketing services.
If you saw yourself in any of these characters, don’t despair. The Twilight Zone , er, Dusk Sector is not a point of no return. Hiring a marketer or creating a marketing department staffed with creative educated individuals can help you find your way back.
Jo will have a hard time getting her stars up on Google but it’s not impossible. Her customers might even be more likely to review her now that they know she really needs it. She lost out on some valuable momentum and growth because she didn’t take Mrs. Crain’s advice earlier though.Â
I like to think that Arthur went on to hire his customer who was also a marketer and that that marketer gave him a good deal. By putting his focus back on his business, I bet Arthur can turn it around. Given that he’s in a pandemic, he’ll have some trouble monetarily in the meantime but he’s shown himself to be a good manager and chef. The marketer will probably draw attention to the new management style for him and run a special to bring in some more business.Â
Finally, there’s Bill. Bill’s small business marketing mistake is the hardest to fix. Bill did something unethical and he probably knew better. His business may or may not have recovered. If Bill is doing better now it’s because he learned to play by the rules and stopped trying to cut corners.Â
If you feel like you’re stuck in the Dusk Sector, think about scheduling an appointment!
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