Major Marketing Mistakes Your Business Can’t Afford To Make

Success for your business isn’t just dependent on the quality of product and service that you are offering to your clients. In fact, it has a lot to do with the marketing strategy that you use and whether its effective in getting people to actually buy the item you are offering.

With this in mind check out some of the most major mistakes that businesses make that cause them to fail in this area. Then you can avoid this for your own company and ensure long-term success and growth.

Not using big data and analytics to inform your marketing decisions

Some people get nervous and sweaty when you mention big data, it sounds kind of scary and all about numbers and calculation so you can’t blame them really. However, it isn’t so terrifying if you break it down a little.

In fact, what the term ‘big data’ refers to is the information that you can gather about your sales and marketing efforts. Something that you can then use to change and tweak things, so the system works even better.

Although, as with any type of information it is only useful in terms of actually being able to read and understand it.

That is why if you haven’t got a quant specialist in your business already, getting someone that can easily collate and visually display this type of data, so it’s easy for everyone else on the team to decode, is vital.

Not using a targeted approach to social media

Social media is often listed as one of the consumers favourite ways of finding out about products. However, a scattergun approach placing the same information and content on different platforms is definitely not the best way to come at this.

In fact, social media marketing can be way more successful if you carefully consider the platform you are using, the demographic you are aiming for, and the content you are putting out there. Actually, it is only by combining all these three factors that you can achieve the optimum results in social media marketing.

Of course, doing this is a delicate balance and can be tough to achieve if you don’t have a lot of experiencing in the marketing field.  That is why using a  professional social media agency can be worthwhile in this situation.

Then they can give you the benefit of their specialist and up to date experience, facilitating your campaign in hitting the right notes the first time.

Discounting AI as a marketing tool

When considering AI, most people minds go off into some science fiction fantasy that contains bald headed robots, with glowing blue eyes, that may or may not be planning to take over the world.

The reality, however, you will be pleased to know is a little less fantastical and a little more useful for things of the everyday variety.

In fact, you can easily use AI and machine learning as a part of your marketing strategy, and to not do so is something that is likely to put you well behind your competitors in the coming years.

AI is marketing works in terms of automation and personalisation. Basically, it is a way of learning what your customer’s preferences are, and then matching content and products to these via an automated process.

An action that means your marketing impressions are directed, focused, and fast. Something that should make them much more effective.

Think of it this way, one one hand you could create a print add to go in a magazine that will be seen by thousands of people but only appeal to a small percentage of the readers. Alternatively, by using AI marketing techniques, you could have some readymade customized continent that it almost guaranteed to land with an individual user each and every time. It’s a no-brainer really!

Not using video to its full capacity

Video is a huge deal in marketing right now. Especially as anyone can drum up a quick clip with the camera on their phone in a matter of minutes. In fact, videos are one of the most shared types of content online. This is obviously something that you can harness for the good of your business’s marketing campaign if it’s done correctly.

However, to make using video effectively, you have to do things right. That means optimising it for SEO as you would written content. It also needs to fulfil a particular purpose, whether that is putting a human face on your brand and establishing trust with potential customers, offering valuable information that they cannot get anywhere else, or even offering entertainment.

In fact, the latter is an approach that can work especially well for shares and enhance your marketing campaign. Just check out this example for proof.

Having an unbalanced strategy

Another big error that businesses can make with marketing is making their overall strategy unbalanced. In this case, an unbalanced strategy is one that focuses too much on the customer interest and PR stages and not enough on closing the deal. After all, the money from the purchases is what pays the bills!

That means, while it is important to address all stages of the marketing funnel, the tactics employed for closing the deal should be watertight. They should also be regularly revised to make improvements and ensure they are as effective as possible.

To this end, consider method such as timed special offers that encourage a purchase there and then, as well as customised reductions to make the deal irresistible to the particular customers you are pitching to.

Also, don’t forget to create a situation where the customer is more worried about losing out on a good deal than about what they will have to pay for the purchase.

Something you can learn more about in detail here.

In summary, avoiding the major marketing mistakes with the advice given above can seriously increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaign. Something that is essential to the continued success of your business and so definitely worth investing some time and effort in.