Lately, I’m noting a lot of marketing myths coming through during consultations with potential clients.
To be honest, this isn’t entirely unexpected in the age of the internet. Google “marketing” and you’ll get millions of hits with different people’s opinions. However, differing opinions are fine. Those aren’t even really myths. It’s simply different strategies to getting the same results.
Instead, I want to focus on these prevalent misconceptions I see small business owners having as it pertains to marketing. These are the marketing myths that truly keep them stuck and broke.
Myth #1: You need that one viral blog post in order to make it.
People think they need one good post to go viral in order to be set. This is so far from reality it’s laughable. Listen, I’ve had posts go viral. Eventually, it fades.
The truth is you need to be consistently putting content out there. This is something I actually discussed when I interviewed my web designer for my podcast. She joked about how business owners think they only need to blog once in order to market themselves. Out of all the marketing myths out there, this one really makes us chuckle.
This doesn’t work for several reasons, but that’s a post for another time. For now, I want you to focus on being consistent with your marketing. This looks like at least one blog post per week on your own site. If you really want to find favor with the Google gods, then you’re looking at putting new content out several times a week.
Myth #2: You can do this all for free.
Do people want to do things for free or cheap? Always. Are they going to get very far as a result? Probably not. That’s why thinking you can market yourself completely for free is on our list of marketing myths.
Don’t get me wrong, there are certain things you can do for free. However, you can accelerate the process once you start paying for tools, advertising, and mentorship.
The way I like to see it is like this: large companies have marketing budgets and so should you. It may not be worth millions of dollars, but some money should be reinvested into marketing.
Myth #3: You can build your business entirely on social media.
If you think you can build a business entirely on social media I want you to heed this section very carefully. This is one of the marketing myths out there that can cause you to lose a lot of money.
You cannot rely on building a business solely on Facebook or Instagram. Why? Because you don’t own it. This means they are changing the rules all the time. These rules can literally cost you your business.
For example, Facebook recently started prioritizing personal posts over business posts. This is, of course, probably to force businesses to pay for advertising. They are within their right to do this.
However, if you built your entire business on a Facebook page, it means it’s now going to cosr you more money to reach people. On the other hand, if you have a website and an email list, you won’t be as hurt by the changes.
Final Thoughts
This list of marketing myths is by no means exhaustive. However, these three marketing myths keep coming up during my conversations with business owners. Do yourself a favor and don’t fall for these.
