Do you ever feel like you’re squandering money on marketing and getting little or no results? If this is the case, you may be tempted to stop marketing altogether.
That would be a huge blunder.
An effective marketing strategy can mean the difference between success and failure for your company. There are eight common marketing mistakes you should avoid at all costs if you want to maximize your strategy.
1. Strictly focusing on data
The old adage holds true for most marketers: “What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get improved.” They track a variety of metrics in the hopes of learning how to improve customer engagement from the data.
The issue is that some of the most important aspects of customer engagement, such as emotional response, are difficult to track. How do you know if you’re pulling at their heartstrings or not?
The real power of marketing comes from the interaction of the left and right brains (data and creativity) (emotion). Putting all of your attention on the data will never yield the best results.
2. Incorrectly defining your niche
Please don’t get me wrong: specialization is critical. Too many businesses, on the other hand, focus on verticals and, as a result, limit their future growth unnecessarily by muffling and hiding their true points of differentiation.
Discover your own distinct qualities and expertise, and present them to anyone who might be interested in what you have to offer. You’ll be in a much better position for long-term, sustained growth as a result of this.
3. Relying solely on digital marketing
It’s easy to dismiss traditional marketing as irrelevant and concentrate solely on digital marketing. The market, on the other hand, is completely saturated with digital tools, options, and platforms, which have created so much noise that most potential customers have tuned them out.
A billboard, print ad, or poster can have a surprising impact in a world drowning in digital ads. You can distinguish yourself by doing things a little differently. If you only focus on digital, you may miss out on some great marketing opportunities provided by traditional media.
4. Conducting ineffective customer research
When it comes to customer insight, quantity isn’t as important as quality of conversation and dialogue. Getting a few customers to speak openly and honestly is far more beneficial than collecting hundreds or thousands of superficial survey responses.
Concentrate on a few in-depth, engaging conversations with members of your target audience. This will result in more useful and actionable information. And it will almost certainly be less expensive than sending out hundreds of surveys.
5. Buying Likes and Followers
Many businesses spend a lot of money to buy likes and followers. That’s a big mistake: customer engagement that appears to be customer engagement isn’t actually customer engagement.
The problem with buying fake likes and followers is that they don’t actually help you make money. It’s exciting to see big numbers after your posts, but you’re not actually engaging your audience.
Spend the money you would have spent on fake likes on deepening engagement and converting real customers into brand advocates. All the fake followers in the world are worth a handful of people who have a positive opinion of your company.
6. Always on the lookout for the “Newest and Greatest” MarTech tool
If you’re not getting the most out of your current marketing technology tools, the newest one is unlikely to help you. I see a lot of CEOs jumping from one tool to the next, spending a lot of money in the process, in the hopes that one of them will work.
You will get your money’s worth if you invest the time and money to learn the tool and train your employees. Be skeptical of new-tool hype, and don’t believe that a fancy tool will be able to replace good training and hard work.
7. Taking part in impromptu marketing
If your marketing efforts aren’t yielding positive results, you probably don’t need more tactics; instead, you need better tactics and a solid strategy to back them up.
Your marketing department may excel at a number of tasks. However, if their tactics are implemented without a well-thought-out and cohesive strategy, they may start to work against each other.
When this happens, you end up with a slew of random marketing stunts. They may appear attractive on their own, but when combined, they will result in a suboptimal or even negative return on your total investment.
8. Concentrating solely on longtail phrases
Companies will sometimes use long keyword phrases with very specific terms in an attempt to save money while climbing search engine rankings. However, if the phrases are too long and/or esoteric, it’s unlikely that any real potential customer will search for them…which means that no matter how high in the rankings you are, you’re doing yourself no good.
Keep in mind that your primary goal is to make money, not to save money. Your SEO strategy should be guided by this goal. As a result, combine long tail phrases with common terms to achieve the ideal balance of visibility and specificity.
Learn more from Marketing and read How to Succeed at B2B Marketing on LinkedIn.
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