Failed Startups Made These 7 Marketing Mistakes — Are You Making Them, Too? Startup success is partially dependent on doing some things well. But it's also hugely dependent on avoiding the mistakes of entrepreneurs who have failed before you.
By Sergio Alvarez Edited by Kara McIntyre
Key Takeaways
- Strategic marketing is essential for startup success; avoiding common errors can greatly improve the chances of creating a profitable business.
- Prioritizing deep market research, understanding customer pain points and aligning with your brand identity are crucial first steps in forming a sustainable marketing strategy.
- Scaling wisely, tracking results rigorously and ensuring cross-departmental communication can streamline marketing efforts and enhance overall startup performance.
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Not all companies are meant to last forever, and that doesn't necessarily mean they've failed. Failure only occurs when the exit doesn't result in a favorable return to stakeholders. As shown by this metric, between 75% and 90% of all startups fail, compared to about 70% for non-startup small businesses.
One of the most common reasons for startup failure is ineffective marketing. Your marketing strategy is just as crucial for startup success as securing initial funding. When developing it, avoid these mistakes.
1. Insufficient market research
Every entrepreneur has eureka moments when that great idea sparks into life. But no matter how great of an idea you have, you can't build a startup based only on an idea.
You must resist the temptation to pour countless hours into product development before fleshing out other aspects of your startup. Instead, conduct in-depth market research first and then use insights derived from your research to shape the product development process. You'll end up with a product that genuinely appeals to your target audience, and you'll be well on your way toward launching more effective marketing campaigns.
Related: The 5 Most Damaging Marketing Mistakes New Entrepreneurs Make
2. Not knowing your customer
As you conduct market research, you'll get to know your target demographic. You'll define the usual age/gender/salary breakdowns, and this info will prove helpful. However, beyond the usual metrics, you'll need to focus on knowing your customers' pain points. What do they stress about? What keeps them up at night? What prevents them from clicking "add to cart?"
Knowing your customers' pain points can allow you to create more compelling marketing materials that communicate value. You'll need to convince customers that your product or service can make their lives better, easier or more enjoyable.
3. Not knowing yourself
"Know thyself" is more than a Socratic maxim repeated by self-help gurus. It's also a foundational marketing concept. While you're getting to know your customers, you'll need to get to know your brand better.
You can only create effective marketing strategies and campaigns if you have a solid understanding of your brand identity and brand voice. All of your marketing materials will need to align with your brand identity in order to produce consistent messaging, build trust and communicate authenticity.
4. Trying to be everywhere all at once
Smart entrepreneurs understand the critical importance of marketing in startup success, and unfortunately, that knowledge can lead them to commit another marketing error. You might envision your brand presence on every social media channel and your website occupying the top ranking for every related search term.
When you're just starting out, however, it's best to avoid trying to be everywhere all at once. Instead, focus on quality over quantity. Identify just a couple of the most impactful platforms and target those first. Focus on just a few of the most relevant search terms, just one or two key influencers and so on. Similarly, resist the temptation to scale your campaigns too quickly.
Related: Avoid the 'Too Fast, Too Furious' Approach to Scaling a Startup
5. Rushing to scale too quickly
You already know you'll need to spend money to make money, and a significant chunk of your funding will need to be allocated to your marketing budget. Remember, however, that it won't do to use up your entire annual marketing budget in just one quarter. In other words, don't rush to scale your marketing campaigns too quickly.
A focus on quality over quantity will lead you to launch "bite-sized" marketing campaigns. Track the results carefully — and learn from them — and make adjustments as needed. When your results are meeting your goals and you feel your strategies are on solid ground, then you can launch a large-scale campaign without needlessly wasting ad spend.
6. Tracking results haphazardly
Of course, before you can track your marketing campaigns' results, you have to know exactly how to go about doing that correctly. If you track results only haphazardly, you'll get an incomplete picture of your campaigns' effectiveness and you'll end up with wasted ad spend.
Unfortunately, common tracking methods leave something to be desired. You might think, for instance, that Google's tracking is quite robust, yet it doesn't monitor every stage of the customer journey. It might attribute a sale to one of its PPC ads, completely disregarding the role that an Instagram post played in the purchasing behavior.
Instead, you'll want to track every single touchpoint in the customer's journey. Conventional tracking methods don't do this, which is why my company, Ai Media Group, uses Atrilyx™ — our own proprietary technology that tracks and attributes every touchpoint in order to optimize conversion paths and boost ROI.
7. Failing to communicate across departments
Evolution is inevitable, and in the startup landscape, it needs to happen quickly. Not only does your marketing team need to rapidly identify the need for adjustments based on tracking data (and execute those adjustments), but they'll also need to make adjustments based on cross-departmental communication.
All too often, different departments in a startup operate in their own bubble. Without open communication across departments, the marketing team might not get all the information it needs to evolve. For example, the customer service team will get a sense of common reasons for customer dissatisfaction, but if that information isn't shared with the marketing and product development teams, those issues won't be resolved.
Similarly, thanks to multi-touchpoint attribution, the marketing team might become aware of a product development issue that causes potential customers to drop off the radar. If there is a communication disconnect, that potentially fatal flaw may go unaddressed. In other words, you can use attribution for more than just sharpening the focus of your marketing campaigns; it can also fuel product improvements and innovations — but only if your startup fosters open communication.
All brands evolve. It's essential to embrace change and chaos and to learn from absolutely everything. If you have a cohesive marketing strategy that includes robust results tracking, you'll find that you can pivot more quickly and effectively, which will fuel the success of your startup.
