877-490-8324Mistake #1: Neglecting to Really Know Who Your Customers Are
When you build your business, you have a certain idea of who the product and services are for, but what if you’re wrong? Some companies make the monumental mistake of marketing to the wrong person. As a rule of thumb, the one with the purse-strings is the one you want to paint your target on, except in instances where another individual has influence over that person, such as a spouse (in B2B) or maybe someone with influence over a purchasing manager (in B2C).
Mistake #2: Relying on Only One Channel for Revenue
Since the only constant thing in this world is change, don’t rely on one marketing channel to drive most of your revenue. The most common and widely known example of this is with companies who were doing really well with SEO before the Penguin and Panda updates. Some companies, due to this algorithm change, saw traffic and ranking counts plummet overnight. A good remedy here is to balance your budget between organic SEO and PPC (adwords) to balance risk if you can afford it, as well as some email marketing and even offline channels such as direct mail. DIVERSIFY.
Mistake #3: Not Tracking and Measuring Your Marketing Efforts
It turns out that 37% of marketers don’t track ROI from their campaigns. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it, and if you can’t manage it, you’re wasting money. To get the most of your marketing dollars, you need to track your data through analytics tools and dashboards. Even a simple spreadsheet that you use to track inbound lead flow is useful and helps for future campaigns.
Mistake #4: Going Big in Your Campaign Without Testing First
When you create a great marketing idea, it can be tempting to then go “all in”. The problem with this approach is that if you strike out, you may not have enough funds to recuperate and try again. When there’s a lot of money on the line, you need to be careful. Start small and scale up. Make adjustments and maximize what works in the idea and eliminate what doesn’t.
Mistake #5: Missing Opportunities Because You Seek “Perfection”
This happens all the time to writers and content developers– they slave away over the details of an article for days on the quest to perfection. They dedicate so much time and energy to one article that they forget to think about things like overall strategy, reach, consistency of message, etc.
It’s tempting to be perfect, but remember that going 90% of the way instead of 100% still gets the job done. Get your message out and remember the key here – GET YOUR MESSAGE OUT.