10 Marketing Mistakes That Businesses Make
If you’re really busy, rushing or just haven’t got the expertise, then it’s easy to make mistakes. This can happen in our personal lives as well as in business. In this article, I’m looking at a few marketing mistakes that businesses make.
The marketing mistake list below is not a complete one by any stretch, but it hopefully raises a few thoughts regarding your own marketing activities within your business and hopefully provides a few actions that you can implement to help improve your marketing. By sharing this list, I hope I can help you to avoid these mistakes in the future.
Avoid Marketing Mistakes
Making a mistake is nothing to be embarrassed about, but it is important to try to learn from them and ask for help if you need it.
Have any of these marketing mistakes been applicable to your business?
1. Not investing in marketing
This is the number 1 fail. If you’re not doing any marketing then how are people going to find out about your products and services. You might have the best service or product in the World, but if nobody knows, then nobody is going to buy. It is that simple!
2. Not having a marketing plan
The truth is that most businesses do some marketing…maybe a simple website or Facebook page, the odd advert, perhaps some livery on the side of a van or the odd leaflet drop. All these activities can work, but if you’re not organised and have a system in place then 99 times out of 100 you’ll be wasting your time and money. When your time and budget are limited, it would make sense to have a plan to maximise your efforts and increase the chances of success. A sporadic approach increases your chances of failure while a marketing plan with clear objectives and how you’re going to achieve them will have the opposite effect.
3. Failing to engage properly with your clients
You’ve done a great job for a customer and they are happy with what you’ve done for them. What next? As a rough guide, 80% of sales come from our existing customers. With this in mind, it doesn’t take Einstein to figure out that you need to have a plan for engaging with them, especially to help avoid them going elsewhere with their business. You can also utilise the positive relationship you’ve developed to up-sell other products or services or encourage them to buy more of the same. Therefore it is essential to invest some of your marketing efforts towards your current client base.
4. Not leveraging your customer’s goodwill
You can use the good relationship you have to request testimonials for your website, social media and printed materials. Testimonials act as a powerful message regarding the quality of your business. Your happy customers are also amazing advocates of your business, so ask them for referrals. Who do they know that could benefit from your business?
5. Not having a news page or blog on your website
Sharing your expertise and knowledge is the best way to keep current customers and create new leads. In creating and sharing high value helpful content you will attract visitors and generate higher engagement with prospects and customers alike. Having a well co-ordinated plan and by utilising your website, e-newsletters and social media correctly will help you achieve this. Remember your content is not about selling, but about helping your customers to resolve their problems.
6. Not using visuals with content
As human beings, we process images 1000s of times faster than the written word. Posts utilising images (graphics, photos or video) receive 98% more engagement than purely text based posts. Is it any wonder that that in the next few years 80% of online marketing content will be video! It is now essential that your on-line content has a visual element.
7. Failing to network*
Networking needs to be a central part of your overall marketing activities. By building strong relationships with other like minded businesses you can create a proxy sales force to help you promote your business. You can also find trusted suppliers and business associates to help you generally. As your networking contacts confidence grows in you and your business, they will also develop enough trust to use your products or services themselves. Find a networking group that suits you.
* The pandemic certainly restricts our ability to network, but once things return to normal networking should play an integral part of your marketing strategy. In the meantime, keep in touch with your contacts.
8. Trying to do too much on social media
It is all too easy to get swallowed up by the endless number of social media platforms that are available to promote your business. As tempting as it may seem, if you sign up for too many, there is an excellent chance that you will fail at all of them. You will end up wasting time, energy and money simultaneously. Choose just one or two platforms that best suit your business, create a plan and stick to it.
9. Not developing a database of contacts
GDPR may have thrown a spanner in your marketing works, but there is still no excuse for not creating a database of contacts, especially email addresses. For B2C customers, you’ll need their permission to email them,so make it part of your sales process. As for B2B, providing you can prove that your target audience would have legitimate interest in your product or service, then you’ll remain on the right side of the law with your emails. Email is still a very powerful marketing tool where you can get right in front of your customer via their inbox.
10. Writing about ‘you’ and not about the customer
We all like talking about ourselves don’t we? On a similar note, it would be all to easy to fall into the trap of talking about your business, what you do, how great it is, the awards it has won and historical stuff like when you set it up. The reality is that nobody cares!
What they do care about is how you can help them. With this in mind, you need to amend what you say and write in your marketing to match the problem you can solve for your customers. A starting point would be to change some of the language you use on your website, so it talks about ‘you’ and not ‘we’.
Do You Need Affordable and Effective Marketing Support?
If you manage a small to medium sized business, you still may find that the easiest option for you is to outsource the work, so that you can get on with what’s in front of you right now. Mojo Marketing provides an ideal solution by offering a highly flexible and very affordable way of implementing your marketing activities.
For a no-obligation chat about your requirements, please call Neil Chatterjee today on 07966 612112 . Alternatively, you can send us a message on our secure form here.