Many of the challenges small and medium-sized businesses face when it comes to marketing are due to a handful of common mistakes that negatively impact their campaign. Fortunately, most of these mistakes are easily identified and rectified if you are aware of them.
Here’s a quick overview of the main ones to avoid:
1) Using Individual Marketing Tactics Without A Marketing Strategy
There are plenty of marketing tactics to choose from, they all take time, and budgets only stretch so far, so it can be tempting to play around with individual tactics rather than approach them as part of a strategy.
This is a mistake because you can never unlock the full potential of a tactic without approaching it consistently within the context of overall marketing goals. Furthermore, many individual tactics complement each other, so if used together the combined ROI is greater, and the value from each is likewise improved.
What many businesses that use individual tactics end up doing is to dip into a tactic now and then, without adequate follow-up or analysis. (A good example of this is businesses that occasionally use Google AdWords) Results are invariably disappointing, and costs are hard to assess.
2) Not Making Full Use Of Your Business Website
It’s surprising how many businesses still view their website as something of an afterthought, or as an online brochure at best. This misses out on the full potential of a website to act as an information hub and lead generating machine. Break the mould with your website. Populate it with free downloadable resources, an up-to-date blog, and useful and informative category pages. This customer-facing information draws attention to your products and services indirectly, improving the value of your website as a resource and increasing your traffic to lead conversion rate.
3) Not Taking Advantage Of Current Trends
Marketing is changing all the time, and at a rapid pace. Trends and platforms that are avant-garde today may be mainstream in a couple of years. Look at the position of social media marketing for businesses today, for example, compared with how it was in 2011 – when it was still a fringe activity. Who would have known then that reputable SMEs would now be using Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms as a matter of course?
Cast your eye around for current marketing trends. Not all of them will be appropriate to your business, but there’s no harm in being bold and experimenting with new ways of reaching your target market. Always be on the lookout for the places online where your target customers hangout, and for the qualities they are looking for in an online marketing experience.
4) Not Using Social Media Effectively
A lot of businesses are now quite good at using Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to engage with prospects and customers. But what about the visual social media platforms, YouTube and Instagram? These are extremely effective ways of reaching a broader audience, as you will catch people who prefer to watch a tuition video, or see a picture of a product, then read through a blog post.
5) Not Analysing Data To See What Is & Isn’t Working
Marketing data shows what works and what doesn’t, how much things cost, and the ROI from various activities. Without thorough, data-based analysis, you have no accurate idea of the success or failure of your campaign. Analyse figures such as click-through rate (CTR), email open rate, cost per lead, organic traffic volumes, bounce rates, number of content shares, time spent on site and other factors. These let you trim a marketing campaign over time by jettisoning practices that don’t work for you, and changing your approach to successful tactics to make them more efficient and cost-effective.
6) Not Following Up Leads
There are plenty of reasons why businesses don’t follow up leads: They’re too busy. They’re not sure what to write. They are waiting for the right person to respond. All valid reasons in their own way, but the result is the same: if you don’t follow-up your leads promptly, they go cold, and you lose the lead.
If you invest time and money in lead generation, you owe it to yourself (and your prospective customers) to follow your leads up. If you don’t have time to do this manually – and most businesses don’t – you can use a marketing automation platform to set up auto-responses and drip-feed information emails to keep your leads engaged, and only follow them up manually when they become active sales opportunities. This stops leads falling by the wayside and also ensures your sales team only invest time in the most qualified prospects.
Next Steps
Working with a marketing agency – such as JDR – can reduce your blind spots and avoid you falling into these common traps. To find out more about creating a marketing strategy, trends for 2020, accurate data analysis, and conversion strategies, please call 01332 982223 today.
Image source: Pixabay
