The title for today’s post captures the single greatest small business marketing mistake I encounter – and I encounter it every single day.

Small business owners fall prey to the marketing idea (tactic) of the week because they have no marketing strategy. If I could change anything about the way small business owners view marketing – that would be it.

Here are the 4 Questions You Must Answer to Develop Your Marketing Strategy

By strategy I mean your marketing reason for being and I don’t mean to exchange money for something. Far too many people think “we want to sell lots of stuff to lots of people” is a strategy. What do you want your market to know about you, what do you want them to believe, what do want them to feel, experience, think, when they consider what you are about – that’s what comes from strategy and that’s what gets you out of the price shopper bin.

Create a strategy for your marketing for your business and then put every tactic into making that strategy real.

OK, you want some good strategies?

• Dominate a narrow market niche
• Package your services like no one else and create a category
• Become famous for doing one thing

These are examples of strategic business approaches that can inform every single business/marketing decision you make. I guarantee you that if do this, find your strategy, marketing your business will become a whole lot easier.

Here’s my 4 steps to create a marketing strategy