We all make mistakes from time to time. Whether we’re new to the marketing game or we’ve been at it for a while now, we are never going to get everything right, but we can all do better. We can learn from our mistakes so that we don’t repeat them in future. It’s puzzling, then, the same marketing mistakes keep cropping up again and again.
With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of the most common marketing mistakes people keep making in the hopes that more people will learn from them, avoid repeating them and create more successful marketing campaigns as a result.
Having a bad website
If you have a bad website, by which I mean a website that is not easy for the visitor to use, chances are you aren’t going to convince many people to go ahead and buy. For one thing, a cluttered, slow website is not going to give customers the compression that you are a reputable business who knows your stuff, and for another, if they do want to make a purchase, the slow, clunkiness of the experience is likely to put them off and send them looking elsewhere anyway.
If you’re serious about selling, you need to invest some time and money into your website. You need to ensure it has a simple user-friendly interface, that is fast, intuitive, and inviting. If you can’t do that, you’ve failed at the first hurdle.
Not taking mobile users into consideration
One of the most common marketing mistakes that keep happening time and time again is the failure of marketing people and businesses to take into account mobile users. This is really puzzling when you consider the fact that pretty much everyone has at least one mobile device that they use on a very regular basis.
More people these days use mobile devices to access the internet than not, so it makes little sense for them to be ignored in marketing strategies, but they so often are. If you ignore mobile device users, and you don’t optimize your website and content for them, you’ll give them a bad experience and they won’t engage with you any further.
So, if you do nothing else, please ensure that all of your websites, videos, apps, and whatever are fully optimized for the mobile user.
Not monitoring your ROI
This is a huge mistake in marketing terms. If you aren’t monitoring how much each of your marketing campaigns is bringing in, you won’t be able to tell which methods are the most effective and which are a total waste of money.
This could lead to you being significantly out of pocket in no time at all so track all your leads know where your traffic comes from and monitor which of your efforts leads to the most conversions or you will undoubtedly regret it.
Not offering incentives
A lot of people, when they’re trying to market something, think that writing some really persuasive copy is all that’s needed to seal the deal. Engaging copy is, of course, important, but it is not often enough in and of itself.
If you want to really convince the maximum number of people to try your products and services or the products and services of your clients, you need to offer incentives; things like discounts, freebies and promotions that will draw them in and really make them feel like it’s worth making a purchase after all.
Not writing a business blog
Any decent marketing agency will tell you that having lots of high-quality content linking back to your business is one of the simplest, yet most effective, ways of driving traffic and making sales. Setting up a business blog is, therefore, a real no-brainer.
Blogs can be regularly updated, optimized for SEO, and used to establish your brand as an authority within your niche. It can also help you to engage better with customers and push you up the search engine ranks.
There are literally no downsides to having a business blog, so why is it that so many companies do not bother anymore? Perhaps they think that posting on social media is a good replacement or maybe they feel like it’s too much work to create good content, but they are wrong on both counts.
Social media posts are important, but they can’t replace the benefits of having long-form blog posts out there, nor do they need to take much time – knowledgeable staff members could whip up a post in 30 minutes or less or the task could be outsourced to a freelance writer. So, if you don’t already have a blog for marketing purposes, it’s time to start one.
Not posting on social media
Social media is free and used by approximately 3.8 billion people worldwide. If you aren’t already using it as a platform for marketing what are you thinking of? If you run a business or you have something to sell you need to be on all of the big social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. That’s where the people are, so it’s where you need to be too.
Oh, and when you do sign up, please don’t buy your followers! This may seem like a smart move to get you started, but it will cost you money without increasing your engagement, which will not help you in the SEO stakes, nor will it help you to sell your stuff to anyone at all. It’s all about organic engagement. That being said, paying for the occasional Facebook ad or Instagram sponsorship deal is absolutely fine if you think it will add value and bring in the customers.
Not using multimedia
Where a lot of budding marketers go wrong in 2021 is by making all of their ads, marketing posts, and traffic-driving content written. Obviously, the written word IS really important when you’re marketing online, but it is not the only way of getting followers. Building an audience and converting sales.
Images, and videos, in particular, are also a vital part of any decent marketing strategy, or at least they should be. Why? Because videos and images are far easier to consume and take less time to get to the point than written text. That means more people are likely to engage with them, and then hopefully engage with your business or your clients with a view to buying.
Of course, this is only going to happen if your videos and images are high-quality, engaging, and useful to the user, so don’t think you can throw any old video together and be on to a winner – you need to take your time and create something meaningful.
Not knowing your target audience
A cardinal sin of marketing is not knowing who your target audience is, but it is a sin that is frequently committed by many people. So many individuals who are new to marketing think that they can simply aim their products at a general audience because after all, the more people they market to, the more sales they will get, right? Wrong. If your marketing efforts are too broad, there is a danger that they will be effectively meaningless, not appealing to anyone at all.
Think about all of the most successful brands you use from Coca-Cola to Apple – they all have a specific audience in mind and a particular way of targeting them.
Apple, for example, aims its products at affluent, tech-savvy individuals who value design as much as functionality and they do it well. They do it well because they are clear about what they do and they know who they appeal to. You need to know this kind of stuff about your audience too. If you know what they like and you know what aspects of your product/service they are likely to care most about, you can better target your ads at them and they will be far more likely to buy.
Spamming people
This may, at first glance, seem like a good way to spread your message and get your brand’s name out there, but it really isn’t the way to go, For one thing, spam is annoying and for another, most search engines actually look down on it.
The problem is, a lot of companies and marketers don’t even realize they’re doing it. They think they’re link building or sending out a polite email to let people know about their greatest deals, but the people don’t see it that way. The rule of thumb when it comes to sending out emails or posting links should be that you are doing so in a way that truly informs, or entertains the audience and adds value to the conversation. If you aren’t doing that, it’s probably spam and you should probably think again.
If you can avoid making these all too common marketing mistakes, there is every chance that you will get it right, come up with a great campaign, and convert more customers than you ever thought possible!
