Everyone is so quick to tell you what you should be doing to market your business. The stuff they don’t tell you are things you shouldn’t be doing. You can have so many amazing ideas, but how do you know one of them isn’t a huge marketing mistake?
Today’s your lucky day! We’re here to tell you marketing mistakes you should be avoiding so your marketing tactics are top shelf quality!
Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
Don’t forget, we aren’t giving you really awesome marketing pointers, we’re helping you out by telling you what NOT to do! Read these 11 mistakes and make sure to do the complete opposite!
Your Vision is Blurry
No, not your eyesight, your vision for your product or service. Before you do anything you need to have a clear vision of what you’re aiming for.
Ask yourself these questions, “What kind of company am I running? What industry do I belong to? What product am I selling? Why am I making this company? Do people need what I’m selling?”
These questions will give you 20/20 eyesight for your business’s vision!
You Didn’t Make a Plan
Once you have a vision of what your company or product is about, you need to create a plan. Creating goals is number one when making a plan. If you don’t have goals, where are you going?
Start with where you want to be in six months. What progress would you have like to have made? Then think about where you want to be by the time the year ends. When you’ve made your six month and year plan you can move onto setting goals further out into the future.
Now think about the steps you need to take in order to achieve your goals. Come up with marketing strategies and update them as you go. If something works, great, keep doing it. If something didn’t work, you know not to do it again.
You Have No Clue Who You are Selling to
You may not know how to define your brand, and that’s bad; but what’s even worse is not knowing who your consumers are. How are you supposed to have a marketing plan if you don’t know who you’re selling to?
You wouldn’t sell cars to babies, would you? It’s very important to keep your demographic in mind when creating your marketing campaign. Make sure you are also keeping track of your analytics to see whose attention you’re grabbing and keep that in mind when updating your marketing strategies!
You’re Ignoring What Your Consumers Need
Now that you know who your customers are, don’t ignore their needs. Also, don’t force ideas or products onto them when they have no need for it. When you force products on consumers you begin to annoy them and you may even turn away a few new customers.
If you are not completely sure what your customers are looking for, research or listen to their complaints. You can also ask them to share their opinions. Just give your customers what they’re asking for, okay?
You’re Unaware of Your Company’s Uniqueness
People are always selling and inventing new products and just because you have something out on the market does not make you special. You have to be aware of what sets you apart from everyone else.
Know your strengths and use them to your advantage. Embrace what makes your company special; and make people not only remember you for your products but for how you sell them.
You Stray Away from Producing Relevant Content
Is your content strategy up to snuff? Can your content be used daily or even yearly? Even if what you are writing about is popular at the moment, you want it to be consumed for longer than just a few weeks. You want to create content that people will always either need or use.
Reusing and re purposing your content is just as good. That means you’re in content marketing for the long run, not just today.
You’re Way Too Shy
You never want to overly promote yourself, but you still want to invest in yourself and get your brand out there. Share what your company is doing and not just with your consumers but with your family and friends.
Don’t be shy to ask your family and friends to share your growth with their circle. Information about your company spread by word of mouth and through the internet will definitely get your company out there!
You Avoid Social Media
We’ve emerged from the times of landlines and having one desktop computer in our homes. Now, we carry mini landlines and computers in our pockets. If you really want to be successful, you need to be active on social media and realize that people do a lot of their shopping online.
If you really don’t understand how to work social media, you can always hire someone to do it for you. There are plenty of social media marketers out there, you just have to find the right one.
When you promote your company or product on social media, it has the ability to be seen by millions of people. What do people like to do? People like to share things! Soon enough your product will be getting sent from phone to phone and making you money!
You Separate yourself from your Industry
Even though you just opened your small business, you don’t want to pull away from the industry you belong in. Don’t think your business is more unique than someone else’s who belongs in the same industry; instead you should be networking and forming a friendship.
Making new relationships with similar businesses can be a very strong marketing tool. Own whatever industry you’re in and make your company unique in other ways!
You Don’t Think you Need Customer Service
Yeah, marketing is totally different than what it used to be, but that doesn’t mean you drop customer service. Your customers are still human and still want to be appreciated. Always make sure to say thank you, write back to their emails or respond to their messages over social media.
This is how you gain loyal customers, not just one time buyers. You can say thank you at the time of the purchase or interaction or you can say it over the phone. Humans want to be thought of as humans, not robots.
You are Not Obtaining Referrals
You can market your product, you can be in contact with a consumer but often times the consumer is going to make a purchase based off what another consumer has said. People love reviews and take them very seriously.
It’s okay to ask your clients/consumers for feedback on your product or service. Use this feedback on your website or tell them to leave their own review. If people are seeing a lot of positive comments, more times than not they will buy what you are selling.
People love to talk and give their opinion, you just have to ask!
What Did You Learn?
Well, there’s some of the marketing mistakes you could possibly be making. Not too pretty huh? Just by NOT making these mistakes you can save a lot of time and money. Hopefully you are one step closer to launching your business to success!
No Mistakes Here
Still unsure of how to market your business? No problem! Check out more articles in our digital marketing blog for the latest tips and tricks. As always. the pros here at Post Launch will help you get your business out there! Give us a call and see how we can launch you into success!
