1.Trying to act like a big business

As much as we (as small business owners) would like to be able to pretend we are a big business, the fact is we are not. Small businesses cannot afford to advertise and market their products a way a big business does. And that means that they cannot advertise and market their products the same way a big business does.

Big businesses go about marketing in a much different way. They have the resources to be able to think long term. They know that their advertising investments are not going to pay off right away, but they have the cash available to withstand the early losses. Small businesses cannot operate that way.

2.Expecting an abnormally high return from their investment

In a perfect world, every brochure printing that you designed would return double its cost in revenue. Yet, as we are all well aware, we are not living in a perfect world. Marketing and advertising efforts will only give you what you put into them. If you do not plan your brochure printing correctly, you may see a much smaller profit than you might expect.

That is not to say that brochures and other advertising material are not effective. It is all about how you use them. Full color brochures can generate a great amount of revenue if designed correctly. And that leads to our next mistake?

3. Trying to please everyone

This is by far the biggest mistake that small businesses make when going about marketing their products. They design their marketing efforts with the general public in mind, when in fact they should be focusing on a much smaller segment of the population. While finding your target market is important for every business, it is absolutely vital to small businesses. With the small advertising budgets available to small businesses, they absolutely cannot afford to go after customers that they are not going to bring in anyway.

4. Expecting immediate gratification

This one goes hand in hand with mistake number 2. Many small businesses expect a higher return from their advertising than is reasonable, they also make the mistake of being impatient. This is totally understandable, since small businesses do not usually have the cash on hand that would make it easy for them to wait around for an increase in revenue.

However, you can't create a market, and you can't force people to buy on your timetable. If you go about your marketing efforts in the correct fashion ? and target the right customers (see mistake #3) you will see a return on your investment. You just might not see it as quickly as you would like.