If your marketing isn’t working as well as you’d hoped, then it can be a sign that you need to improve your marketing plan.

Usually, it doesn’t mean you need to start over from scratch.

Throwing everything out and starting over is actually one of the biggest marketing mistakes you can make.

Because this ‘let’s start again’ approach will have you working backwards, which will only slow down your business growth.

Instead, you must identify what parts of your marketing plan are working well for you and what is not.

So, you can tweak, adjust and improve your marketing plan to build upon what you know already works.

And let go of the marketing strategies or activities that aren’t working for you or your business.

If you don’t work on continuously enhancing and improving your marketing as you grow your business…

Then, you’ll always struggle to make enough sales to achieve the freedom and flexibility you’re searching for.

To help you grow your service business sooner, here are five signs your marketing plan isn’t going to give you the results you’ve been hoping for.

#1 Your goals are too vague or missing details

Is your goal to find more clients? Or is your goal to find five clients who will purchase your signature offer before the end of this quarter?

Can you spot the difference?

When your marketing goals are more specific, it will provide you with an additional layer of clarity that will motivate and guide you in marketing your service business.

So, instead of spinning around in circles and wasting time trying lots of different things, you’ll have the clarity to focus on the marketing activities that will enable you to achieve your goals.

#2 You’re offering too many services to too many people

If you have a lot of services for a broad audience, you’ll find it hard to get your message to stand out and cut through.

Because with so many offerings to communicate across your vast community of followers, your key messages get diluted, and you get lost amongst your competition.

However, with a strategically designed suite of services, you can craft and repeatedly communicate a targeted message to your audience to stand out and stay top-of-mind.

RELATED: 15 Things you need to create an irresistible service offering

#3 You haven’t selected enough marketing channels

You likely gained some clients from within your existing network and referrals when you first started.

However, when it’s time for you to grow, you’ll need to find new clients outside your network.

It’s usually at this point when marketing starts to become harder for most people.

But when you start showing up in at least 3 – 5 preferred marketing channels, you’ll quickly grow your visibility and awareness, which is the first step to generating leads and making sales.

#4 You haven’t allocated the appropriate timing and resources

One of the most common marketing mistakes I see service businesses make is in the timing and execution of their plan.

To get sales quickly, they rush their great idea out to market before it’s ready or don’t allocate enough time or resources to execute their marketing plan well.

If you want to see brilliant results, then it’s important to give yourself enough time to execute your marketing campaign well.

And to identify upfront if you have enough or the right resources in your business to achieve success.

If you don’t, then consider if there are other people you could bring in to support you.

Or if there is some upskilling or training you could do to enhance your results.

RELATED: How to write a marketing plan for a service-based business

#5 You haven’t factored in past results

If you haven’t viewed your marketing insights and analysed your last campaign, you’ll find it tricky to enhance and improve your future results.

Because growth comes from understanding where your marketing gaps are and then tweaking your activities to close those gaps and improve your sales performance.

When you track your performance metrics, you’ll have the information you need to build a marketing plan to grow your service business – without having to start over again from scratch and waste precious time.

RELATED: 7 Marketing metrics every service business should track

When you have clear goals around specific services that you’re trying to sell and a strategic marketing plan that’s well-planned and executed, you’ll start to see an improvement in your marketing results.

In addition, when you review your marketing performance after each campaign and keep making continuous tweaks and improvements to your plan, you’ll grow your service business so much faster.

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