What's The Number One Marketing Mistake Made By Small Business?

So, what's the number one marketing mistake madenewspapers, bombard your eyes on the interweb or
by small businesses?interrupt Lost right when something good is going to
Thinking that MARKETING and ADVERTISING arehappen-is just a small, small part of Marketing.
the exact same thing.And an expensive and, for most smaller businesses,
When you first hang out your shingle, you probablyutterly ineffective part at that.
got leapt upon by hungry ad salesmen like a freshSo, what fills up all that empty space in the
deer in a cage full of lions.marketing universe?
"You've got to get your name out there!" theyGlad you asked. All sorts of stuff. Stuff like blogging,
growled at you. "We'll grow your business by leapsnewsletter writing, podcasting, word of mouth
and bounds!!" they said with a snarl.marketing, internet marketing (no, I don't mean
And then you looked down and realized they werebanner ads), Direct Response Marketing and, of
gnawing on your leg. And you realized you probablycourse, hiring a guy in a banana suit to dance outside
wouldn't be bounding anywhere.your shop.
Do me a favorWait, not that last part.
Take out a piece of white paper and draw a big, bigNow, I spend my days working with clients as a
circle that takes up just about the whole page andmarketing consultant and copywriter. Which means I
label the circle "Marketing."sell stuff with words.
Now over in the right corner of that circle, draw aAnd it's the rarest thing in the world that I tell a small
much, much smaller circle and label it "Advertising."business to open up the piggy bank and spring for a
We just made something called a Venn diagram. Andprint, radio or TV ad.
what that diagram is telling us is this:Because it's expensive.
Advertising is always MarketingBecause it's usually untargeted.
But marketing is not always advertising.And because the last thing you want to do is feed
In fact advertising-interruption ads that leap out fromthe lions.