Common Marketing Mistakes

Common marketing mistakes fall into general categories; failure to understand your customer, resistance to change, and ignorance of current strategies. These categories can overlap but we will use them for our discussion.

Failure to understand your customer is the basis of all marketing mistakes, because marketing is about understanding people. Do you collect data from your current customers so you know who your base is, how they heard about you, why they come and why they come back? Do you know who else might need what you offer? General marketing research is a tool, but it has limits. The more you connect with your actual customers and understand them, the more focused your marketing will be. People buy with their right brain (connections) more than they do with the left (logic) and they rarely buy the first time they hear a message. Do you know which message connected and how long it took to get a response?

Resistance to change plagues all of us because it takes effort and money to adapt to what is happening. It’s easier to do things the way they always have been done. Identifying your unique selling proposition (USP) means analyzing your business honestly and stepping out in new territory might involve taking decisions out of committee. When was the last time your committee agreed on which donut was best? If they can’t agree on donuts, how will they agree on marketing?

Ignorance of current strategies is easy to fix: invest in professional marketing advice. All the social media techniques, website and SEO strategies, and understanding how to mix the traditional with the cutting edge is what a professional marketing firm does every day. They already know what it will take you valuable time to find out on your own.