'Winging it' isn't a tactic that you'd employ in most areas of your business operations. Taking this approach on a production line could result in suppliers receiving faulty goods, for example, while HMRC would take a dim view of anyone doing this when calculating their corporate tax liabilities. So, it's surprising that many business owners are happy to do this with their marketing, despite the fact that implementing marketing techniques correctly could generate higher profits for their companies. Failing to plan your marketing activity properly could even have a negative impact on your business. Here are just five reasons why 'winging it' is a bad idea.
1) You're Less Likely To Reach Your Target Audience
If you want to sell your products and services, the right people need know about them – and that means using the appropriate marketing tools, channels and techniques. If you 'wing it', you'll be less aware of what does and doesn't work, and could be promoting your product to people who are never likely to convert.
2) You Could Be Wasting Time & Money On The Wrong Things
Without a clear marketing strategy in place, you might find that you've been working on projects that haven't helped you to achieve your business goals. If you haven't thought things through properly, you might be creating the wrong type of content, for example, or optimising your website for terms that your potential customers won't actually search for.
3) You Won't Be Making The Most Of Each Activity
If you take a 'wing it' approach to marketing, you're unlikely to be using each piece of work that you complete as effectively as you could be, so you'll get less value from your efforts. For example, using a single (adapted) piece of content as the core of an email marketing campaign, your search engine optimisation strategy and your social media marketing plan could give you great results.
4) You Won't Benefit From Customer Insights
If you have a structured plan of action and know what you're aiming to achieve, you can analyse the data that you collect while carrying out each activity and use it to refine your strategy. Your campaign results might show that you get more responses from some pay-per-click ads than from others, for example, or that your potential customers are particularly interested in content on certain topics. If you don't have a plan in place, you're unlikely to be able to collect or benefit from this type of data as effectively.
5) You'll Fail To Hit Key Targets
Finally, if you haven't specified what your goals are and detailed how you're going to achieve them, the chances of you reaching them will be slim. Not only will you be more likely to take your marketing activities in the wrong direction, you'll also be unable to track your progress accurately. Failure to hit the targets associated with your key performance indicators (KPIs) could cause you to put expansion plans on hold or even force you to scale your operations back, causing serious damage to your company.
What Next?
It may be a cliché, therefore, but 'failing to plan is planning to fail' when it comes to marketing your business. If you don't have a marketing strategy in place, however, don't panic – we can help you to create and implement one. Just get in touch today to discuss your requirements with a member of our team.
Image source: Pixabay
