Marketing has and always will be the fuel that brings in a constant stream of revenue and profits for your business. Digital marketing in participator has been a game changer in the industry. The sheer power of Inbound marketing, along with the control you can eventually have on where you put in your efforts, understanding your analytics and results to make better decisions based on data and much more have contributed to its success. Sadly, however, most businesses still end up making marketing mistakes. These mistakes can cost you opportunities, time wasted, and possibly even damage the very brand that you work so hard to create. Learning what those mistakes are and how to not only fix but avoid them, is key in your marketing plan.
Here are some marketing mistakes you may be making and what you should do about them:
Inconsistency With Marketing
Doing marketing the correct way takes resources, time, and dedicated effort. Plus, this is a reminder that you can’t do it all alone. Having said that, many small businesses only do marketing when they think they need.
- Sales numbers seem low this season? Let’s launch a campaign.
- Need leads? Run ads in a newspaper, magazine, or elsewhere.
- We got more leads and customers than we can handle. Let’s stop the campaign now.
- We have a budget for the next 3 months, what can we do for maximum impact?
Does that feel familiar?
Marketing isn’t something you do when you go low on sales figures; it’s something you do consistently, every day, each month, all year long. When marketing is done only when you are hungry for results, this becomes something called “Binge Marketing.”
Throw Money & See What Sticks?
Doing traditional marketing (offline print media, billboards, postcards, and flyers) has a few inherent problems. First, it’s cost prohibitive. Second, you wouldn’t know what works and what doesn’t. Third, most businesses can’t be consistent with it since it’s expensive.
For a long time now, most businesses were forced to spend and see what happens. Throw money at a medium and see what happens next. The only problem with that is that it’s not a sustainable way to do marketing. Now, whether you embrace offline or online media, the “throwing money and see what sticks” isn’t a good way to do marketing. What works better is when you put science, analytics, tracking, and judicious decision-making behind those campaigns. By testing, experimentation, taking the time to think through your offers, making the right moves with marketing — you put yourself ahead of your competition and also find a better way to ensure that your business thrives.
Not using Technology
Why are some companies not using online technology to their advantage? It could simply be the fear of the unknown or it could be that technology could intimidate a lot of people.
Technology helps companies do marketing better, streamline the processes, find a way to semi-automate or automate parts of a business, saves costs, and to overall do business better. With marketing alone, there’s what’s known as a “marketing technology stack” — a series of tools, apps, and software to help you manage your digital marketing efforts.
In all honestly, others have already done the hard work with coding. You have access to world-class technology, tools, and apps available now that could help you do so much more, even with limited time, budget, people and other resources.
Thinking you could Marketing, all by yourself
Marcus Lemonis, of CNBC’s The Profit, always likes to say, “A good business is all about the product, people, and process.” Without any of those in place, you won’t be able to make it through. The way businesses go today, with the lure of “self-employment, freelancing, and starting a business on your own,” it’s easy to get trapped into the habit of doing everything yourself. Don’t. At least not with marketing.
Marketing has many moving parts. Those parts have to come together to bring in the results. Document everything you do for marketing in your business. Break it down into specific processes that absolutely anyone can follow and execute. This helps you hire expert help when you need to.
Running with the crowd
Consider digital marketing for a minute. There’s so much information out there that’s it hard to known who to trust, what to specifically do to get results, and more. Most people settle for what we are all tuned to do as humans; follow the crowd. But the crowd doesn’t already do the correct thing. Chances are that their efforts are mediocre, at best. If you have to follow, duplicate the efforts of people, organizations, and publications that are doing exceptionally well online.
What are the mistakes you are making with your marketing?
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