No business has marketing money to burn. And yet many business are allowing their marketing dollars to go up in smoke by not making their efforts as effective as possible.
Below you'll find a few of the most common and destructive marketing mistakes a business can make. Check and make sure that your marketing budget is working hard to make you money, not lose it!
Attacking on too wide a front.
There are plenty of new businesses out there who hope to sell their product or service to "everyone." Unfortunately, by trying to throw their marketing net too wide, they will most likely fail to net anyone at all. Build an Ideal User profile and learn everything you can about your target audience. Where do they hang out online? How old are they? What are their particular interests and preferences? Then target your niche with your marketing practices, note what works well, and refine your practices as quickly as possible.
Not having a USP.
What is your Unique Selling Point for a particular product or service? Can you state the USP the instant anyone asks you? If not, chances are you are wasting marketing money. Websites, landing pages, paid search listings and ads all need top-level information that gets to the point, fast. In today's internet world, you may only have a few seconds to convince browsers to become customers.
Having an inconsistent digital presence.
When you first started building your internet profile chances are you probably worked long and hard on getting it all up and running. Then the ten thousand other insistent demands of running a business took over and your web presence (LinkedIn listing, Twitter presence, websites) began to look dusty and uninhabited. Having an off-again, on-again digital presence can cause more harm than good in marketing, as you lose more customers and brand trust each time you let your digital assets falter. If your digital presence is a key component in your marketing mix, it is probably worth paying an assistant to handle. Most small business web profiles are at least a 20 hour a week job.
Buying links from link farms.
It's tempting, when you are working hard to stretch your marketing dollars, to take shortcuts where ever you can find them. Even the big companies fall prey to the poor marketing practice of buying their links for better page rank (or in JC Penney's case, employing a marketing firm which did so). But authentic link building takes time and effort. Link farms sell high quantity links rather than high quality links, and the increasing ability of search engines to do backward link analysis means link farm users are more likely to have their sites penalized. If you plan to spend marketing dollars on link building, use solid, white-hat tactics.
Failing to use a crystal clear call to action.
Websites, flyers, brochures, or other assets that don't tell the recipient exactly what action the viewer should take next are a monumental waste of time and marketing money. Don't just announce your business name or services — tell the prospective customer to click now, download immediately, get started by entering their name and email. Otherwise you allow them to wander away without ever having known what you want them to do.
Stay tuned for the next installment in Calvert Creative's "Money-Wasting Marketing Mistakes" series!
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