Marketing mistakes your company could be making

Why aren’t your marketing efforts bringing the results you expected? These things are just a few of the common marketing mistakes that many companies might be making to cause this to happen:

1. Not having a solid budget
   Your company’s marketing budget needs to take into account many different factors, so it’s important to put a lot of time and thought into setting the budget. In addition to the original estimate, it never hurts to develop a second budget that you could be happy with in the event that you don’t get the increased leads that you’re looking for.
2. Placing too much hope in referrals
   Word-of-mouth leads and referrals you get are always useful. However, you can’t rely solely on those and let your marketing campaigns simply end there. You always need to follow up on those referrals and make sure they get directed to your website.
3. Lack of understanding when it comes to your target market
   When your company doesn’t know your target, start with the assumption that your past clients are the best indicator of who your future clients are going to be … chances are, they’ll be decently similar. From there, dig deeper. Once you have all of the data you need, you can align your marketing plans with the tendencies of your target market.
4. Pushing the wrong message
   Today’s consumers are extremely smart, resourceful and also well-educated. There’s no need for self-serving marketing messages that outline your benefits and features over and over again. Keep marketing messages pure and highlight you competitive advantage. Simply tell your target audience why they should do business with you and give them one reason that they can’t dispute.
5. Having an ineffective web presence
   How well-designed and up-to-date is your website? This should be a key component of your marketing strategy. If a prospective client can’t find all of the necessary information about your company from your website when they go looking for it, you can almost guarantee they will be moving on to look for someone else.
6. Pushing the right message over the wrong channel
   Sometimes businesses make the mistake of investing heavily in identifying their competitive advantage and value propositions only to use the wrong marketing channels to push the message out there. You can’t simply follow what other companies are doing … you need to understand where your company’s target audience is. Whether it’s review sites, blogs or anything of the sort, make sure you’re on the appropriate channels.
7. No story-telling going on
   We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again … consumers do not believe what your company has to say in a self-serving, feature filled marketing message. Your work should be able to speak for itself, especially when you highlight why your clients chose you. From case studies to testimonials and reviews, these things show transparency and give prospective clients a real idea of who you are and what your company is capable of. And most importantly, highlight the emotional side of things from the client’s perspective, not your company’s.
8. Lacking validation from third-parties
   Your company can’t assume that your target audience is going to just believe everything you say. Serious buyers are going to do their research, and a lot of it, to see what others say about your company and the entire experience that they’ve had. Try to make sure your company has a decent number of positive reviews and detailed comments that can provide insight for prospective customers that go searching.

 

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