The 10 Biggest Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Below is one of our most valuable and popular pieces Perfect Marketing has ever written. It has been published several times in the marketing press and is an invaluable guide of how to generate big money from your marketing whilst avoiding the pitfalls.1) Advertising
The simple fact is most advertising simply does not work. Unless your business is the size of Macdonalds or Coca Cola advertising is a complete waste of money. If you are spending money on advertising and you do not know if it is working (and by working I mean delivering a substantial return for every pound spent) stop it – immediately.
2) Copying competitors
Lots of business owners I speak to fall into this trap. They see competitors in a magazine, at a trade show or on a piece of direct mail and then copy them because otherwise they feel left behind. There are 2 reasons not to do this.
1 - Unless you know what return they make from their marketing activity there’s no reason to assume it’s successful, they might be bankrupt!
2 – 90% of businesses are average, doing average marketing, achieving average profits. To be ultra successful you need to avoid what everyone else does and do the extraordinary.
3) Failing to measure ROI
If you do not measure every pound you spend against the return it delivers – you do not know if you are making or losing money on each activity. If you don’t know this, you’re working blind and you can’t make informed decisions on what marketing to stop and what marketing to roll out on a much larger scale.
4) Failure to test
Clients of mine often say things like, “Oh no, we can’t try direct mail, it would be too expensive if it didn’t work.” These views are common and totally false. If you carefully test various marketing methods before spending large amounts of money you will never take an uneducated risk. The client that made the comment above sent 100 letters to his existing customers at an approximate cost of £50. He generated over £15,000 of sales. How expensive is it NOT to test?
5) Relying on one type of marketing
A healthy marketing mix is essential. A client of mine used to rely solely on email marketing, until their biggest competitor started doing the same and his sales figures were halved overnight. If you rely on just one type of marketing you are not only vulnerable to competitors, you are missing out on literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of untapped wealth sat right in front of you which can be yours be carefully testing and measuring new types of marketing.
6) Buy and blast approach
So many clients have suffered the same fate. They bought a database of potential customers (or so they thought!) created a marketing campaign, executed the campaign and got a limited, or even worse, no response. This then puts them off forever. Create your own list and send everyone on it things of value to build trust with them. That way, when they are ready to buy what you sell they WILL use you.
7) Dropping the ball
Within small and medium sized businesses, when things are going well marketing activity stops. When things are going badly and cut backs are being made, marketing is the first thing to go. Most business people don’t realize is how incredibly CRUCIAL it is to be marketing CONTINUOUSLY throughout these times for the long term stability of the business. You’re one of those business people who do know. Good on you.
8) Ignoring your customers
On average, 80% of your turnover comes from the top 20% of your customers. There is guaranteed, untapped wealth sat in your customer list today that can be unlocked by simply picking up the phone, writing a letter or sending an email RIGHT NOW. In my experience, CONTACTING YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMER LIST IS THE ONLY GUARANTEED WAY OF GENERATING MORE BUSINESS IN A MATTER OF HOURS.
9) Not offering guarantees
Offering a guarantee with your product or service has an incredible effect on leads generated, conversions and sales. The thing that puts people off doing this is they assume a guarantee has to be a 100% money back guarantee. It doesn’t. It can be a delivery guarantee, a quality based guarantee, even an environmentally friendly guarantee. A guarantee in some cases will QUADRUPLE your conversion rates.
10) Marketing by committee
Everyone has an opinion on marketing. Your friends, colleagues, employees, family, even people you’ve never met before will tell you their opinion on your marketing. The fact is they wouldn’t stand over a heart surgeon who was performing a triple heart bypass and say “Actually, I’d do it like this”. But with marketing they can, because marketing is about people. My advice is this: test, measure different marketing methods and creative messages. Record the response rates they deliver – only change the things the results tell you to and over time your marketing will become so powerful that you will only listen to one person’s opinion– yours.
By taking some time today to work through each of these points you can add significant value to your business in a few simple steps.
Paul Hallett
0845 680 11 84
paul@perfectmarketing.co.uk
Perfect Marketing Limited
Malmarc House
The Old Library
116 Dewsbury Road
Leeds LS11 6XD
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