Small businesses need to set aside a budget every month for marketing their business. But to get a return on your investment, you need to find the most effective ways of getting the word out about your product or service.  Unfortunately, there are ways small businesses waste money when it comes to implementing a marketing campaign and the following list details some of the top areas.

Facebook Marketing Ads

While building a Facebook following is an effective way to reach current and potential customers, Facebook is constantly changing their algorithms which means that only a small number of your followers actually see your posts.  In order to reach Facebook users, small businesses need to purchase Facebook ads.  Facebook works this way to make sure that their users aren’t bombarded by posts that would turn Facebook viewing into spam scrolling.  The good news is that Facebook advertising is inexpensive.  You can boost a post for as little as a dollar a day.  However, if you do not have a sound marketing strategy in place and a talented copywriter as your disposal, your ads won’t reach the right people and you’ll be frustrated by a lack of conversion and wasting money.

Google Adwords

There’s no way around it, Google Adwords is an expensive way to advertise and the competition is fierce – if you don’t know what you’re doing.  Unless your small business has an exclusive niche product with little or no competition, expect to pay big bucks for Google advertising.  The minimum amount of advertising you can expect to pay is $50 a month. This may not seem like much, but in reality, you might not get any conversions because of the small audience that $50 a month reaches – unless you reach the right people. To see what your competitors are spending on Google Adwords per day visit www.keywordspy.com and see if you can compete. To get the conversions you’re looking for, outsource your Google Adwords campaign to a marketing expert.

Not Knowing Your Audience

In order to implement a successful advertising campaign, you need a solid marketing strategy and one of the most important elements of this strategy is knowing everything there is to know about your customer – age, gender, interests, spending habits, location, etc… Without this information, you are throwing money away on paid ad copy and it will feel more like gambling than marketing.

Spreading Yourself  Too Thin

As a small business, chances are you’re running your business by yourself or have just one or a two employees or freelancers helping you.  If this is the case, don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to be everywhere at once.  While it is ok to try out new ways of advertising, choosing one or two proven methods and sticking to them will get you the best return on your advertising dollars.