What are the biggest mistakes online businesses make?
- Thread starter Junis
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From your previous post @Junis :
* slow website access - More often the problem in the countryside and elsewhere beyond the reach of superfast fibre is that the geeks that build the sites make them too complex and overloaded with large images and complex scripts that by definition make them slow to load on a slow connection.... A high percentage of the target customer base will not have the latest highest powered connection.
* lack of uniqueness - So you make up for that with competitive pricing and superior customer service giving you the edge over your competitors
* solving an unimportant problem Any problem is important - Attention to detail is what will help you win orders and business: What you have to bear in mind is the COST of solving these problems: The internet model by definition has low fixed costs which translate into low end user prices - the percentage of total cost in solving a particular problem can therefore look disproportionate.
* slow website access - More often the problem in the countryside and elsewhere beyond the reach of superfast fibre is that the geeks that build the sites make them too complex and overloaded with large images and complex scripts that by definition make them slow to load on a slow connection.... A high percentage of the target customer base will not have the latest highest powered connection.
* lack of uniqueness - So you make up for that with competitive pricing and superior customer service giving you the edge over your competitors
* solving an unimportant problem Any problem is important - Attention to detail is what will help you win orders and business: What you have to bear in mind is the COST of solving these problems: The internet model by definition has low fixed costs which translate into low end user prices - the percentage of total cost in solving a particular problem can therefore look disproportionate.
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Agreed.
Some appear to have watched Field Of Dreams. If you build it they will come.
May be a million new websites added to the however many already existing websites. How to get people viewing that one and how to get them buying while they are there.
Sadly the marketing appears to be missed out by some. I'll just use facebook they say. A hundred friends see it and are not interested.
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a) Believing that the internet is the b all and end all.
b) Not understanding that you are in competition with BILLIONS of other pages.
c) Not understanding the Distance Selling Regulations,
d) Not having a legal website with all required information on.
e) Creating fake reviews,
f) Believing people are only buying on price.
g) Believing people who say all you need is SEO
h) Giving too much margin away to the likes of Amazon
i) Having a poor payment provider
b) Not understanding that you are in competition with BILLIONS of other pages.
c) Not understanding the Distance Selling Regulations,
d) Not having a legal website with all required information on.
e) Creating fake reviews,
f) Believing people are only buying on price.
g) Believing people who say all you need is SEO
h) Giving too much margin away to the likes of Amazon
i) Having a poor payment provider
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As already suggested: marketing is where is goes wrong for many. They underestimate the time and cost and think that all they need to do is post on Facebook.
Nope. None of these. With the right marketing people will forgive these three and just about anything else.
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I'm surprised how many people have said "marketing". I know numerous internet business that have become very successful without the owner doing any marketing.
Marketing is highly overrated, IMO.
The more useless your product or service the more you have to pay on marketing. As @fisicx says, most underestimate the cost of marketing - which means their own opinion of how fantastic their product is (and how little marketing it needs) is skewed. Their product is a lot more towards the crap end and therefore needs a lot more marketing.
My advice: improve your offering and throw less away on marketing!
I'd go with @Ian J - it's getting into the wrong market that is behind most failures. Closely related: getting into something you know nothing about, implementing a crap idea that you thought was the dog's b*llocks and which really wasn't, "following your dream", not knowing the first thing about how you are going to make money etc etc. It's PEBKAC.
Added: When I make posts like this on marketing, all kinds of marketers come out of the woodwork to protest loudly. Please yourself, but I'm not changing my mind and can't be bothered arguing with you.
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No confusion here, I chose my words carefully. 
Create a good enough product and the public will do the rest, your product will go viral, you'll get floods of orders. You don't need to do anything.
Marketing is the price you pay for having a rubbish product.
So work on the product, not on what all those marketing people are telling you (especially when they try to redefine what marketing is really about and widen it to include everything and the kitchen sink).
Create a good enough product and the public will do the rest, your product will go viral, you'll get floods of orders. You don't need to do anything.
Marketing is the price you pay for having a rubbish product.
So work on the product, not on what all those marketing people are telling you (especially when they try to redefine what marketing is really about and widen it to include everything and the kitchen sink).
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No confusion here, I chose my words carefully.
Create a good enough product and the public will do the rest, your product will go viral, you'll get floods of orders. You don't need to do anything.
Marketing is the price you pay for having a rubbish product.
So work on the product, not on what all those marketing people are telling you (especially when they try to redefine what marketing is really about and widen it to include everything and the kitchen sink).
Ah. But having the right product is also the reward of your marketing.
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Indeed.
Does the ultimate in a product get released to market now? Or does version 1.0 get released now and a later version becomes the 'right' product to have based on improvements?
Anyone who has designed things should recognise that the first version and the final version can be different based on …. among other things …. marketing.
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Not necessarily.
You can have a great product without doing any market research.
What is it some people claim Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Oxford Dictionary: "The action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising"
Anyway, enjoy your Sunday, folk. I've got plans for the day. Enjoy whatever opinion you have of marketing. All the best.
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Yet they consistently top the best seller lists. Case in point. One thing ford do phenomenally well is to understand their customer and what they want (marketing)
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No not funny there are people on here that cant go on holiday because there will be nothing left when they get back
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@Mark T Jones and @Mr D , thanks for proving my point that a crap product needs lots of marketing.
The more useless the product (and service) the higher the need for marketing. In fact, you can probably tell how rubbish a product is by the percentage of its price that goes on marketing (relative to closest competitors).
At the other end of the scale there are fantastic products that do not need marketing.
As you know, I speak with a lot of people interested in selling their business. Sometimes this is in person at events where I'm speaking, sometimes it is over the phone. You won't believe how many of them think their business is worth a lot more money just because "all it needs is some marketing and it could be huge".
They are wrong. And buyers see it as a stupid (and desperate) argument.
We've often had posts here from people who claim their business died because they didn't have the capital to market.
They are wrong. They didn't have enough marketing capital to cover the level of rubbish of their product.
I cannot emphasise this point enough - marketing is not the big deal people make it out to be. Marketing is not what you want to aspire to - it's the lack of need to do marketing that you need to be aiming for! (Unfortunately a lot of people here seem to be too brain washed by marketers!)
The more useless the product (and service) the higher the need for marketing. In fact, you can probably tell how rubbish a product is by the percentage of its price that goes on marketing (relative to closest competitors).
At the other end of the scale there are fantastic products that do not need marketing.
As you know, I speak with a lot of people interested in selling their business. Sometimes this is in person at events where I'm speaking, sometimes it is over the phone. You won't believe how many of them think their business is worth a lot more money just because "all it needs is some marketing and it could be huge".
They are wrong. And buyers see it as a stupid (and desperate) argument.
We've often had posts here from people who claim their business died because they didn't have the capital to market.
They are wrong. They didn't have enough marketing capital to cover the level of rubbish of their product.
I cannot emphasise this point enough - marketing is not the big deal people make it out to be. Marketing is not what you want to aspire to - it's the lack of need to do marketing that you need to be aiming for! (Unfortunately a lot of people here seem to be too brain washed by marketers!)
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Yes. But you need to make sure you have the right product at the right price yadda, yadda, yadda. That's part of marketing. I agree that once all the ducks ar lined up it may not need further investment but you have to begin with a bit or marketing to get the ball rolling. You could create the greatest widget ever in your shed but unless you show it to someone it will never succeed. Showing it to someone is called marketing (in the very broadest sense of the definition).
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Having the right product is key but presenting it in a unique way is the second most important thing.
There are so many sites selling the same thing as part of the same collections in the same way. Find a unique way to sell or show it to make yourself stand out.
The biggest mistake we made was not to update the website often and quickly enough - Google has thrown up so many new major SEO requirements year in year out that you have to comply with - and not to spend more money on it so that future upgrades then became limited - but that is after it was successful not before.
There are so many sites selling the same thing as part of the same collections in the same way. Find a unique way to sell or show it to make yourself stand out.
The biggest mistake we made was not to update the website often and quickly enough - Google has thrown up so many new major SEO requirements year in year out that you have to comply with - and not to spend more money on it so that future upgrades then became limited - but that is after it was successful not before.
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If someone tells me he's selling something that 5,000 others are selling, this would be my advice to him:
Improve your product. Increase the differentiation. Stop selling the same crap as everybody else. Stop jumping in to resell what you think is a product-in-demand and trying to scrape a few pence in margin because if you do then you have no good reason for people to buy from you except a) you're cheaper (ie you're willing to take less profit than the next guy or b) your BS is better than his.
Rise above that. Don't strive to make your marketing BS better than his, put that effort into making your market offering better.
(I'm keeping in focus the fact that this thread is about businesses that are online ie. businesses where the market research is in the past tense i.e. the business exists, the product exists and we're talking about the biggest mistakes being made by existing online businesses that make them no hopers.)
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Yes.
I've 2 products hitting the market inside next 2 years, once legal and testing have finished. Marketing spend already begun on one.
Both solve a problem that isn't currently solved very well though each is somewhat different they have the same legal issues hence running process together.
Without marketing one would have a chance of selling some, without marketing the other has zero chance.
The one that would have a chance has a marketing allocation over next 10 years of 10% of its selling price. The other has a marketing allocation over same time of over 50%.
Great products as perfect as can be currently. Could be 10, 20, 50 years before can improve on them. Or someone could improve on them tomorrow without knowing they exist.
Improving product in order for it to sell presumes that:
1. Customers want product improved
2. Customers won't buy it in sufficient numbers unless it is improved.
Sorry Clinton I tend to agree with you on many things. On some things, such as this, I think there are multiple ways of doing things and product without marketing doesn't need to be a better product, it needs to solve the problem and have potential customers know it solves the problem.
Would you splash out £10k (for example) on a product purchased at a distance you can pick up locally though not solving the problem very well for about £10?
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I used to believe this too. Fortunately, my business survived my being ignorant of the importance of marketing.
I approached a mentor (ha!) for advice before I started this business, specifically asking "I know how to make damn good X, but how do I sell it?" His reply, verbatim, was "If you make good X, people will buy it". Sadly that is not enough anymore.
Now this is not a universal truth, and I sincerely hate to be defending marketing, but it is a reality in our business sector at least - bluntly, we are in a commodity market with a ridiculous number of competitors of hugely-varying quality, BUT quality or service or whatever is not sufficient differentiation. You need to tell people about the qualities of your specific product and build a brand, because the differentiation does not carry enough weight by itself. Sad but true.
Guess what the single most important differentiator in this market is?
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I’m no longer sure I know what Clinton’s point is
Initially I pretty much agreed in that spending money on promotion is largely a waste of time and money unless you clearly understand who your customer is.
Beyond that - it makes little sense to talk about ‘perfect’ or brilliant products, because they don’t exist. What does exist is ‘best fit’ for a specific set of clients or circumstances.
Whether or not you choose to term it as marketing, understanding who your client us and what turns them on is a huge factor in success
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