Running a successful business involves many different spinning wheels. In order to keep your company growing consistently, smoothly, and efficiently, you need to keep each one of those components moving in the right direction. However, some of those wheels are more important to the success of your business than others.
The way you market your business is arguably the most important factor when it comes to how successful your business will be. Even if you have a great product or a superb service, without the right marketing campaign, you’re not going to be able to attract the attention of your target audience. However, when you have a great marketing campaign, your products can fly off the shelves.
Unfortunately, getting your marketing “right” isn’t always easy. With so many different techniques and strategies, it can be difficult to understand the best way to connect with your target audience. If you’re constantly making mistakes with your marketing, you may find that your business is slowly going under.
Don’t allow a few careless missteps to cost you your business. Let’s take a look at five of the biggest marketing mistakes you may be making, and what you can do to solve them.
1. You’re Working With the Wrong Team
When you’re running a business, your company can only be as strong as the individuals you have working for you. If your team is not invested in seeing the company succeed, they’re not going to go above and beyond to put in the work and get things done. Instead, they’ll clock in each day and do the bare minimum before clocking back out and heading home.
If your marketing team isn’t excited about the work you’re doing, you will probably struggle to see your company take off. When they’re not developing creative new campaigns, advertisements, or content strategies, they’re not giving your target audience anything to connect with. Your ideal customer will ignore your marketing materials and head off to a competitor.
Your marketing team may also be causing problems for your company if they’re not properly trained or skilled in the areas you need. Because the marketing world is constantly changing to adapt to new strategies, technology, and consumer needs, you need a marketing department willing to change with the times. If they’re still looking to base an entire marketing strategy on flyers, you may see your competition take off without you.
Hiring the right marketing team should be the main priority for you and your business. Ensure that your team is motivated and excited about your company and their work. Furthermore, give your team the necessary training and education they need to stay up-to-date with the changing marketing world.
2. You Don’t Know Your Target Audience
When you’re just starting out, you’re probably not entirely sure what kinds of customers you’re going to attract. However, if you try to market to everyone you’re going to find that you’re unable to make any serious, long-lasting connections. While you may be able to land a sale here or there, you’re going to struggle to get the repeat customers you need to truly see your business take off.
In order to foster long-term relationships with your target audience, you need to understand exactly who they are. Taking the time to identify who your ideal customers are will allow you to tailor your marketing to fit their unique needs, preferences, fears, and experiences.
When you identify and understand your target audience, you’re able to craft content that speaks directly to them. By formulating marketing pieces that consider exactly what your target audience is looking for when they get online, you can create stronger connections with your ideal customers that grabs their attention and pulls them in.
Creating a buyer persona is a great way to get to know your target audience a bit better. By outlining exactly who you’d like to attract with your marketing, you’re able to pinpoint exactly who your content should be targeting. With your buyer persona, you can keep a clear image of your ideal client so you always know who you’re creating marketing materials for.
3. You’re Not Diversifying Your Content
Your content acts as the backbone for all the marketing you do, which means it needs to be strong. However, just one form of content isn’t going to be enough to catch and hold your target audience’s attention. If you’re not diversifying your content, you could be missing out on some high-quality customers and clients.
There are many different kinds of content that you may include in your marketing strategy. From blog posts and articles to videos and infographics, each kind of content has a unique purpose. If you want to get the most from your content, you need to include a few different pieces in your mix. Not only will this help you attract more attention, but it will also improve your presence online and increase your reach.
Different kinds of content can open new doors for you and your business. For example, including videos in your content mix can give you the opportunity to appear in YouTube searches. Because YouTube functions as its own search engine, hosting videos on the platform can help you attract new users and potential customers.
When looking at how you should diversify your content, consider who your target audience is and where they hang out online. If you know your target audience engages with videos and other visuals a lot, including more images, infographics, or videos in your content mix. Likewise, if you know your audience is full of readers, blog posts, articles, and ebooks may be best for you.
4. You Have an Unrealistic Budget
One of the biggest benefits to marketing online is that you’re able to promote your products or services in a cost-effective way. However, this doesn’t mean you’re able to market entirely for free. While you may not need to dish out the same kind of marketing budget as you would for a commercial, a magazine ad, or even flyers, you still need to have some funds to spend.
Many companies fail at marketing online because they don’t create a budget that is realistic. Instead of properly allocating funds to promote their products or services, they assume they can use the power of the internet to get their content in front of new audience members. Unfortunately, this rarely works out well for them.
Your marketing budget should consider a few different areas. First, you want to think about the individuals you have creating your marketing materials. If you need to outsource to create a high-quality piece, you’ll need to factor this into your budget. You will also need to consider how you’re going to promote that piece. You may choose to pay to boost a social media post or pay for pay-per-click advertisements.
When creating your budget, you always want to leave some wiggle room to play with new strategies or account for mistakes. By including some extra funds in your marketing budget, you can try out new techniques to see which work best for your audience or give a campaign an extra boost if it isn’t delivering the results you were originally after.
5. You’re Only Promoting on One Channel
The internet is a big place. While many of our target audience members will stick to the same websites, social media platforms, and forums, there may be a few outliers exploring in some unexpected places. If you’re only sticking to one channel or platform, you’re not going to attract many high-quality leads.
Knowing how your target audience is using the web is important. However, you need to remember that within your target audience, potential customers may have different preferences for how they engage or where they spend their time. If you’re only marketing on one social media platform or you’re sticking strictly to your website, you’re narrowing your reach and making it more difficult to get long-lasting customers.
Just as you want to diversify your content, you want to promote your marketing across many different channels. This means you’ll want to use a few different social media platforms, your website, and potentially other websites as well. The more appropriate channels you can promote on, the more engagements you will receive.
However, you want to keep in mind that just any channel is not going to deliver high returns. If you’re going to promote on a certain platform, you want to ensure it is popular with your target audience. Don’t waste your time, money, or resources trying to market to a crowd that isn’t interested in your products or services.
Marketing mistakes can be fatal for businesses. If you’re not promoting your products or services appropriately, you’re going to find it difficult to attract new leads, convert them into customers, and sell new products or services.
