Many businesses, unknowingly, make mistake after mistake, and those mistakes are due to a certain degree in how a business employs marketing tactics, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. While some businesses close down due to unforeseen circumstances, marketing mistakes can contribute to a firm's loss of sales or even closure. Recognizing the following marketing mishaps can help a business avoid potential losses and marketing failures.

1. Not keeping track of return on marketing investment. Business owners, experts report, are eager to throw money at flashy marketing consultants without ever calculating exactly how much money is made from a marketing investment. By doing the numbers, businesses can weed out ineffective marketing strategies. If an expense doesn't convert into a dollar amount made, business owners "may be wasting their money," says marketing expert Kevin Daum.
2. Aiming at a broad target audience. When a business generalizes its target audience, it can actually limit that business's reach to potential customers, according to business writer Steve McKee. While mass appeal can be alluring for any keen strategist, McKee argues against overreaching your market. A narrow target audience or niche market is the key to marketing success. Zeroing in on a small faction rather than branding for a huge swath of the population can drive margins. 
3. No marketing support for the sales team. If a business relies on a sales team to supply marketing strategy as well as deliver sales, the result is inefficiency and poor performance. Marketing support creates a cohesive unit so that the salesperson can focus on potential clients and customers.  
4. Believing people make decisions rationally. Research suggests that people make purchase decisions for purely emotional reasons that are disguised as rational ones. This psychological phenomenon can certainly confuse market strategists into thinking that consumers are guided by rational, right-brain thinking. If marketers can find ways to appeal to prospective buyers' emotions and senses, then sales may improve. 
5. Neglecting online potential. The sole purpose of a website is not to pitch products constantly, according to Inc. Magazine. Rather, its purpose should be to cultivate relationships within a business's network. Once a business has built trust through networking, posting interesting news, or giving feedback, then its online audience will be more receptive when the time does come for a call to action.
6. Overhauling steadfast marketing strategies in place of trendy new tactics. In a wise piece of advice, McKee entreats businesses to hold fast to marketing strategies that they know to work. "Siren songs of new tactics" as McKee refers to them, can lead to dangerous over-extension or, even worse, marketing failure.  
7. Launching products that aren't ready. In her daily column, Carol Tice of Entrepreneur offered this sage piece of advice: don't launch a sub-standard product. While this may seem like common sense, a business eager to reach predicted outcomes may favor launching a sup-par product in lieu of waiting for the mature product to ripen. A blunder like this can lead to unsavory product recalls and public retraction announcements. 
8. Expecting immediate results. As McKee aptly points out, rare is the customer who stops everything he's doing to go out and follow an ad's instruction. More often than not, a business's marketing efforts may only make an impression on a potential customer. Those impressions, if consistent and credible, build brand awareness over time. When implementing a marketing strategy, McKee warns that results will not come immediately. Results take patience, commitment, and consistency.
9. Lack of market research. Whether a business is on a shoestring budget or enjoys huge margins, not conducting market research for a product just to save a few dimes can be devastating to a marketing campaign. For example, in the South African film industry, there is simply not enough money to justify the costs of research. Analysis of the market and competition for a business's product in the early stages of development can prevent ultra-huge losses once a product is launched.
10. Not paying attention to customer demographic. If a business is too busy not to notice changes in customer demographic, a missed opportunity can cost a great number of potential dollars lost. Take, for example recent news about the daily deal giant Groupon. In a recent article in Forbes, an unexpected majority of users of the daily deal site turned out to be Millenials, men and women born between 1977 and 1994. By changing marketing strategy to adapt to the user demographic statistics, Groupon has a huge opportunity to appeal and grow with this young generation. 

Andrianes Pinantoan is part of the team behind Open Colleges, a TAFE courses provider with great marketing courses. When not working, he can be found with a camera on hand.