Plenty of small businesses spend money on marketing and see almost nothing in return, then conclude that marketing simply does not work for them. The real problem is rarely the channel or the budget. It is that the fundamentals were skipped in the rush to post on social media or run an ad. Effective marketing is less about clever tactics and more about getting a few basics genuinely right, and those basics are the same whether you spend nothing or a fortune. You Cannot Market to Everyone The most common mistake is trying to appeal to everybody. When a business tries to speak to everyone, its message becomes so general…