Marketing is the lifeblood of any sustainable business

Companies know this and spend tonnes of time, energy, and money in employing different marketing strategies. However, these strategies don’t always bring in expected and profitable results in the form of more traffic, more customers, more money, and increased customer loyalty. For small businesses and startups, the problem is especially frustrating because they have a cap on the financial and human resources that they can use.

Companies know this and spend tonnes of time, energy, and money in employing different marketing strategies. However, these strategies don’t always bring in expected and profitable results in the form of more traffic, more customers, more money, and increased customer loyalty. For small businesses and startups, the problem is especially frustrating because they have a cap on the financial and human resources that they can use.

The missing key is being smart and strategic and implementing techniques thoughtfully by examining which ones will have the greatest ROI. Part of that smartness and strategicness is to be as knowledgeable about what not to do as it is to be about what to do.

Hence, it’s time now to fill those knowledge gaps, learn the most common marketing mistakes that you might be unknowingly making, and get on the path to rectifying them for a profitable and successful business.

The What-Not-To-Do-In-Marketing Guide

Not marketing yourself

This mistake sometimes arises out of fear, especially for people and businesses starting out. Putting yourself on the line, speaking about your product or service, making a case for yourself, are all nerve-wracking. Most business owners, hence, end up marketing very half-heartedly which is not going to be effective at all.

The other reason for making this mistake might be the assumption that ‘people will find my product.’

Truth is: people aren’t going to learn about what you offer unless you tell them. The brands and companies that everyone knows about, reached where they are due to an excellent quality product and dogges marketing efforts to tell the world about its excellence.

The market is already saturated with people from all over the world creating and selling all kinds of products and services that humankind would ever need. In such a scenario, if you don’t make it a point to stand up and tell the world about what you offer… you are actually stealing from the people who would benefit from your service.

This ties into the next mistake….

Not taking the time to know your ideal client

If you are talking to everyone in the market, you are talking to no one really.

This is akin to mistake #1 albeit in a different form. ‘Market and the right people will find you’. No, they won’t. Your modus operandi should be: ‘market to the right people and they might end up staying.’

And who are these right people? Someone who would derive great value from your product.

For this, you need to actually sit down and think hard. What kind of person would buy your product? What are their needs? How do they see the world? What do they spend their time doing?

These questions will help you to market to an actual human instead of in a void. Additionally, it will help you to craft authentic campaigns that make the customer feel as if you just stepped in their brain and then helped solve a problem. By the end of it, you would have won them over.

Not leveraging your USP

Once you know your ideal customer and have pulled them in, the plan of action is to offer them a solution in a way that no one has. This will originate from your unique strengths and capabilities a.k.a your USP.

Your USP is what sets you apart in the market. Because, as pointed above, there are already thousands of businesses operating in every imaginable domain. There is always someone with a better quality product, a cheaper price, a discount offer, and sometimes all three.

So you need to sit and think. What sets you apart in the market? What is your USP? What will help you to stand out from the crowd and get chosen?

Not focusing on retaining old traffic while bringing in new one

Some businesses make the mistake of trying to pull in new customers at the cost of cross-selling or up-selling to their previous group of customers.

Your existing customers already know your value, have a relationship with you, and are more likely to buy from you. The amount of energy that you have to invest in them is a lot less than what you have to invest in new ones.

According to Marketing Metrics, a customer who has previously made a purchase from you is 60% more likely to purchase from you again. In contrast, the chances of a first-time visitor to your website making the same purchase are only 20%.

So, as you seek to expand your market and your reach, don’t forget to walk your existing clientele with you. Keep in constant touch with them and communicate that you value their presence. It’ll pay off in the long run.

Not focusing on website because of social-media

With the popularity of social media, the rise of influencer marketing, and the fact that everyone, has an account on a social media channel, has encouraged most people to ditch their websites in favor of a social media account.

This is akin to building your business on rented land. You can’t help when the price of the land goes up.

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn- none of them are owned by you. They are controlled by other folks who care about their business and not yours. So when the algorithm updates or policies are changed, you are always vulnerable to being negatively impacted.

Your organic reach might decrease, you might have to create ads with a set minimum budget that might be more than your budget, or video ads might be given more outright preference than display ads.

You cannot control any of these consequences. Social media is great for finding new customers and driving a few sales, but to rely on it entirely for running your business is foolhardy.

Your primary focus should be on your website only. Best to build your home on a piece of land that you bought where you get to make the rules.

Not including call to actions (CTAs)

At the end of the day, all your efforts are geared towards a particular action: getting the customer to buy from you, to book you, or to hire you. To simply include you as a value-providing part of their life.

A beautifully designed email about your latest course is of no use if, after reading it, the subscriber has no clear way to sign up for it. Hence, your every conversation with the customer should prompt them to take action and say ‘hell, yes!’ to you.

CTAs become even more crucial on your website. The customer needs to spend time with you so that they can go through your content, gauge if it is of value, and eventually, come to trust you.

How to get them to stay with you? By integrating CTAs on different pages. A synonym for it would be internal linking.

So, sprinkle these links and CTAs all over your website. At the end of the article, you could display the related posts. Or tell them to check out a course which further expands on the information provided. After they sign up for your email newsletter, you can direct them to your archives.

CTAs work well on other mediums, too. According to AdRoll, adding CTAs to your FB page increases click-through rates (CTRs) by 285%. When Brafton made changes for a client by adding CTA buttons to article templates, their revenue increased by 83% in one month.

Take action and include some calls to actions now!

The above are just a few of the mistakes and entrepreneurs and business owners make during their marketing efforts. The sooner they are rectified, the sooner revenue begins to flow in and customer loyalty begins to go up. Which business wouldn’t like more of these, right?

So, go into introspection mode as soon as possible, call a meeting with your team post that, and make plans to become the next marketing legend in business!