When it comes to marketing mistakes, some are undoubtedly more obvious than others. Lack of preparation, not valuing the customer and not having a crystal-clear strategy are all marketing mistakes you should definitely avoid and to ensure the success of your business, you must create a unique selling proposition in order to market your brand, product or service to your audience effectively. Luckily for you and your business, there are countless ways you can ensure you avoid these mistakes. From setting realistic goals, to replacing your plain mailing bags with stylish printed mailing bags, here are just a few marketing mistakes you should definitely avoid.
Failing To Set Goals
In order to ensure your marketing is successful, you must first set goals as to what you are out to achieve. After all, what’s a business without goals and objectives? When setting marketing goals, ensure that they are based on your business goals. Even though setting marketing goals based on business goals is easier said than done, it is paramount that they are in sync, otherwise you won’t be able to measure business success. In order to create a well-defined marketing goal, think of the bigger picture. You may want to generate more leads, but you need to identify how many additional leads you need in order to achieve your goal. In a similar way, if you want to rank number one in Google, you need to identify exactly what you want to rank first in Google for.
Failing To Invest In Social Media Marketing
It’s true. Social media is one of the most powerful tools available to market your businesses within the market place. Despite this, more than half of businesses are failing to invest in social media marketing. This is because small businesses especially believe that they don’t have the time and resources available to create relevant social content. In order to create an effective social media marketing strategy, you must:
- Identify your audience
- Focus on one social media platform at a time, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram
- Identify your key success metrics
- Analyse your selected metrics
- Create a social media marketing plan
Not Utilizing Data
Data is revolutionising marketing and sales alike, which is why it is paramount that you utilize your business data correctly in order to avoid making mistakes in your marketing. When you conduct a proper analyse of your data, you will gain a better insight to your audience, which is paramount when it comes to marketing your brand and product or service. It doesn’t matter how much you are collecting, either. What matters is how you decide to use the data in order to benefit your business. Whatever you do, don’t ignore it!
Making False Promises
When it comes to marketing your business, it is important that you avoid making false promises – at all costs. After all, you wouldn’t make a promise that you can’t keep, so why put your businesses reputation on the line for the same thing? If you aren’t able to ‘promise’ or ‘guarantee’ something, don’t mention that you can, and it is especially important that you avoid any references relating to this within your marketing. Even the subtlest of hints can be misinterpreted and land your business in serious trouble. You’ll certainly thank us!
Testing, Testing
Marketing is never easy, but with the right testing, you can avoid several errors that large corporations and small businesses across the globe have failed to avoid. To make things a little bit more difficult, no two audiences are the same. As a result, the best way to identify what marketing will attract your audience most effectively is to start testing. A/B testing is a great way to identify what gain a better understanding of your audience. Not only will it help your improve content engagement, and thus attract more consumers, but A/B testing leads to increased conversion rates, as you gain better understanding of how to approach your audience in the most effective way possible.
There are a number of marketing mistakes you definitely want to avoid. Whilst not all marketing mistakes, such as chasing competitors, are necessarily avoidable, you can prevent many mistakes by testing your marketing campaigns first before spending hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds promoting it, and identifying what you want to achieve. Remember: it’s all about being proactive, rather than reactive!
