When marketing your product or service, you need to have a firm understanding of your audience, the message you want to deliver, the offer you’re willing to make, and the optimal timing for your marketing campaign.
Too often new entrepreneurs and startups make costly mistakes that result in an unsuccessful marketing campaign. Common marketing mistakes can be avoided with adequate planning, attention to detail, and ongoing measurement and evaluation. To be successful avoid these common marketing mistakes.
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Timing. You may have a great list, a fantastic offer, and even a well designed landing page, but if your timing is off, so too will be your results. As an experienced marketer, I have seen some very expensive marketing campaigns that were very compelling but failed to produce results. This is because the campaign reached consumers at a time in which they had no interest in buying the product. For example, trying to fill an eight week teleclass for parents of school aged children during summer break. - Failure to Test Your Headline. As the first thing your prospect usually reads, the headline is essential for luring your prospective buyer into the message, your offer, and the action you want them to take. Regardless of the medium, you should continually test your headlines (or subject lines) by running split tests and evaluating response. This ensures that your marketing message attracts the largest number of prospective buyers.
There are many tools to help you test headlines even before you mail to a single subscriber. Two of these are: Advanced Marketing Institute and Co-Schedule Headline Analyzer. Another great tool to use is social media. Pick your top 3 headlines and simply ask your Facebook followers which one they prefer. If you have targeted Facebook followers, you will get a pretty good indication of what appeals to your ideal customer.
- Having a Good List. For many types of marketing campaigns, success is directly tied to having a targeted list. Building a targeted list takes time and is a topic worthy of a book by itself. Take the time to develop a highly targeted list of names you acquire on your own through permission based opt ins. Buying a list is not recommended.
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Relying on a Single Communication. On average, consumers are hit with over 2,000 marketing messages every day. In fact, recent studies have indicated that consumers need to see your marketing message an average of 12 times before they take notice. If there is any truth to the claim in part or in whole, it means that you must communicate to prospects on a regular basis. Placing a single ad on Facebook or sending a single email cannot deliver effective results. Determine the media that your prospects use to gather information and develop an ongoing campaign that works within your budget. - Not Measuring Campaign Effectiveness. Over time, your business is going to do a lot of marketing. Even if you are a solopreneur wondering how you’re going to communicate to a prospective audience, you’re going to eventually have some type of interaction. Regardless of the marketing campaign size or expense, you need to track your results. This can be done with a simple spreadsheet or a CRM system such as Constant Contact. The bottom line is you need to record what works and what doesn’t so that you can improve your results in the future.
- Failure to Continue the Dialogue. After working with a number of entrepreneurs, I’m still amazed at how many fail to communicate to customers on an ongoing basis. Often times, consumers only hear from the seller when it’s time to buy again. If you have an established customer base or list, chances are you’ve worked hard to acquire them. You should be spending some of your marketing budget to retain them. Be sure to open a dialogue with customers, solicit their feedback, and communicate with them regularly. This will help to solidify the relationship over the long-term.
There are many methods to keep the conversation going. It can be as simple as a monthly newsletter. However, you should also include blogging and social media in your relationship marketing.
If you’re a new entrepreneur, have experience as a marketing professional, or simply want to improve your current marketing results, be sure to learn from the mistakes of others. To be successful, continually work towards improving your marketing effectiveness. Avoid the 6 most common marketing mistakes, and you’re on your way to delivering tangible results.
