The 6 Biggest Marketing Mistakes Businesses Are Making Today
Marketing is a cornerstone of doing business, but it’s something that can backfire rather easily. We’ve all heard horror stories of businesses using outrageously bad marketing that causes them to nearly close their doors. Case in point: The mattress company that decided it was a good idea to use the 9/11 memorial day for a “Twin Tower Sale”. But some of the biggest marketing mistakes aren’t that blatantly obvious. No matter how innocent they may seem, the marketing mistakes below should be avoided at all costs:
Not Using A Marketing Automation Platform
There are so many marketing channels to leverage, managing them all can be difficult for small and large businesses alike. A marketing automation platform is starting to become an invaluable tool for any business that makes lead generation a priority. Marketing automation software can help eliminate delivery issues and streamline processes connected to email campaigns, online forms and numerous other lead channels. They also make it easier to run cross platform marketing campaigns that send a cohesive message. Review this resource to see who’s tops in the competitive marketing automation market right now.
Failing To Make A Connection On Social Media
We’ve already discussed the four cardinal sins of social media marketing, but one stands out as the worst offense. The only thing worse than not having a social media presence today is to have outdated accounts that fail to connect with your audience. Social media is meant to be interactive and up-to-the-minute. A stale social account says to users that your business isn’t very active. Social media may seem like a time consuming waste of time to some, but that’s the nature of the beast if you want to do business today, especially if your customer base is largely millennials. Luckily, there are tools that make social media management easier for busy professionals. Some worth checking out include:
- Hootsuite
- SocialFlow
- Buffer
- SproutSocial
- TweetDeck
Black Hat SEO Tactics
Using backhanded SEO tactics is never a good idea. These are essentially techniques that try to game the Google search algorithms so that web pages rank higher. Not only is black hat SEO trying to cheat the system, it’s not a long term strategy. Google’s engineers catch on to black hat tactics rather quickly. They adjust their algorithm so that guilty sites don’t get good rankings and then penalize the worst offenders.
Outsourced Copywriting
The words that are used in your marketing campaigns have a lot of significance. Copywriting can affect click through rate, conversions, search engine ranking, branding and much, much more. It’s tempting to go with an extremely affordable outsourced writer, but too often you get what you pay for. Ultimately, you’ll end up rewriting almost everything. Investing a little bit more in a local writer you can talk to on the phone or meet in person is a much safer option.
Email Campaigns That Turn Into Spam
Crossing the line between email marketing and spam is a definite no no. You can avoid getting the reputation of a spammer by:
- Avoiding the temptation to buy emails off of purchased lists.
- Being conservative on the number of emails you send. Try to limit it to no more than once or twice a week unless you have a hot lead that wants more information.
- Not using deceptive subject lines.
- Removing addresses that have bounced repeatedly or requested to be removed.
- Shying away from ALL CAPS and exclamation points!!!!!!
Getting Bogged Down In Branding
One of the biggest mistakes startups make is getting stuck in a branding vortex. So much emphasis is put on making it absolutely perfect that the needle fails to move forward. Almost as much time is spent considering designs and color schemes as the products and services behind it. Ultimately, many businesses end up with vague, watered down branding, or none at all. Your brand is the image of your business. There’s a very good chance it will evolve over time, so there’s no need to get bogged down trying to achieve perfection.
The majority of the work comes down to making sure it visually represents what you do/offer/stand for in a way that appeals to your target market. As long as you’re 90% happy with it, that’s enough to get your branding established. All businesses make a marketing mistake every once in a while; it’s an ever evolving process as your business grows and expands. The key is to connect with your target market, enlist the help of other professionals when needed and avoid the marketing mistakes above at all costs.
