There have been more ways than ever before to market your business and expose the world to your brand. An array of social media platforms, mobile apps, and even a renaissance of more traditional marketing tactics (including the use of direct mail, or “snail mail”) are all helping businesses continue to drive their growth.
But as with most things in life that involve options and choice, making the right one can have long-lasting effects on your business’s growth and financial well-being. Marketing companies and agencies also have a luxury that other industries don’t; they get to spend a businesses’ money to test things. Oftentimes when businesses opt to do this themselves, one step forward can lead to two steps back if their marketing strategy isn’t clear and unique, and knowing the terrain of an ever-changing marketing landscape is a vital prerequisite.
In this article, we’ll go over the top 5 mistakes businesses make that could put them out of business in 2021. We’ll teach you how you can ensure you spend wisely, test wisely, and steer clear of the following mistakes in your marketing so your business continues to grow and thrive.
Mistake #1 – Choosing a Gimmick Over Being Clear
Many companies try to go viral in today’s marketplace by coming up with cute or clever videos, social posts, or other gimmicks often tied to current trends. Most don’t realize that a lot of the viral moments we think about became viral purely by accident. It is common during the creative process to let the imagination run wild but allowing it to get to the point that the most critical questions never get answered in the final product makes the process irrelevant.
Regardless of the strategy you implement for your marketing, it needs to answer those critical questions such as, “does this marketing campaign speak to our target audience,” “will they connect with the message,” and, “does this marketing convey our ‘why’ to the customer?” Without answering these questions first, your strategy won’t be clear to you, your team, or your target market.
Mistake #2 – Trying to Serve Everyone
No matter how universal you believe your product or service is, or how many different types of customers you can serve, the most successful businesses are able to stay hyper-focused on their target market. This means going a step further and making sure your business is focused on who your product or service can serve best. Casting a wider net in an attempt to rake in a larger number of customers often stresses a business’s financial resources and tends to require more in-depth strategies that could move your business further from the goal line of growth.
Instead of trying to implement a marketing strategy that serves every customer, identify the personas and demographics of the customers in your initial beachhead market and apply your marketing strategy to the identity of those customers. Understanding the wants and needs of those initial customers will help you better answer the questions outlined in Mistake #1 above and prevent your business from tripping over its own feet when defining who the customers are that you want to serve.
Mistake #3 – Ignoring Marketing Channels You Don’t Understand
It’s human nature to fear the unknown, but not marketing to your customers where you can have the best and easiest access to them will cost you valuable sales in the long run. Lose enough sales over time, and it could cost you your business.
You may not be a social media junkie, but you do have to embrace new marketing opportunities that arise to grow your business. If you understand your customer demographic, then you are simply making an intelligent decision to invest in marketing channels that put you in front of the customers that fall into that demographic. Remember: it is possible for you to utilize the marketing capacity for social media and other marketing platforms without having to consume them.
Mistake #4 – No Story or Unique Selling Proposition
People love a story. Stories are what give brands a soul and make them personable to the customer. A brand with a solid story at its foundation can create a soul for itself which can then build a connection and establish brand loyalty with customers — the goal of which is to foster brand loyalty that then becomes nigh unbreakable.
Tremendous revenue growth can be established when a business moves from being a commodity to becoming the obvious choice in the customer’s mind. Creating a unique selling proposition for the customer is a prime way to establish your brand as that obvious choice in the eyes of the customer. At current, how do you answer the question, “why your brand,” and how do you articulate to the consumer what your brand story is? If you can’t answer the question clearly and concisely, or if you are unsure of how your brand messaging is communicated to consumers, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Mistake #5 – Lack of a “Value First” Strategy
Things like sales quotas and objectives, while needed, often create an environment where it’s easy to skip steps when prospecting for new customers for your business. A value-first strategy involves creating a marketing environment built to enlighten and influence customers through your purchase process. Just as you wouldn’t ask someone you just met to marry you, far too many business owners miss crucial sales opportunities because they fail to have a structured way to ensure they are giving value to their potential customers before going in for the close.
No customer wants to buy a product or service that does not provide value to them in some aspect of their life. Establishing the value that your brand brings the customer first — before hitting them with the sales pitch — is a necessity in today’s marketing landscape. In establishing value first in your business’s marketing strategy, you can then more easily and effectively funnel your target customers down towards an eventual transaction.
