The 3 Worst Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

One of the greatest things about marketing in this day and age is that pretty much anyone can do it on the internet. You can coordinate your own campaigns and send out your desired message in the effort to raise awareness and drive sales to bring your business to new heights.

The only issue is that doing it is not the same as doing it well. (…details!)

Before you dive head first into the marketing game, I think it’s important that keep in mind that it isn’t always so simple, and that there are people that do this for a living. To do it well without consulting the professional means investing time and energy into learning the ropes and understanding the common pitfalls. The Optimizer may go into detail on how to physically create campaigns (like in this Facebook campaign creation article), but I’m here to explain a little further how NOT to run them and to point out some misconceptions that you should probably avoid if you want to take a DIY approach.

Marketing Mistake #1 – Just Throw Money At It

Ah, the budget! The good old, dependable, boring budget! As a numbers guy, the common misconception that more money means more returns tends to drive me up the wall. I’ve heard questions like “how many more leads will I get if I put it X more dollars?” or “if I’m only paying for clicks, why shouldn’t I increase my advertising budget to get more visibility?” At first, these questions seem to make sense, but let me explain why these should NOT guide your decision making process.

Advertising is by no means a guarantee of success; it’s highly dependant on a whole host of factors, and you may never be able to pinpoint exactly why a specific person did or did not opt to become a customer of yours. Sure, you can get an idea and build an expectation based on existing campaign data, but a dollar-for-dollar increase in ad spend doesn’t directly correlate to your returns on such spending, and you are ultimately operating at the mercy of the market’s demand.

Before you increase advertising budget, build your understanding of where the previously spent dollars were most effective, and adjust your strategies to take advantage of your strengths. We strongly suggest reviewing your analytics in depth before making any changes whatsoever. Going off a gut feeling can make your gut feel a bit sick when your gut is really just guessing; don’t flush your hard-earned dollars down the drain with poor budgeting strategy.

Marketing Mistake #2 – Try to Impress With Your Knowledge

What if I told you that hyperlocalized ideation incorporating structurally optimized metadata for proper indexing by SERP will build your SoLoMo and set you apart as the industry thought leader? Would you be impressed? Confused? Maybe even annoyed?

Even if that sentence made sense to me, (which it only sort of did,) there was so much jargon and useless lingo that anyone who does not work in my field would certainly never understand on the first read through. The bottom line is this: you are not marketing for you. You are marketing for your customer, and I can guarantee you that they do not know as much about your field as you do.

Make sure that your content is geared to them, both from a linguistic and messaging standpoint, and that your copy is clean, simple, and effective. It’s a lot harder than you might think, but with practice, you can certainly hone your skill. Just don’t assume that the depth of your knowledge of the industry is enough to be a superstar, and instead bring yourself to the customer’s level and speak their language.

Marketing Mistake #3 – Advertise Wherever You Want

There are so many ways to advertise between social media, paid search, and more, so it makes sense that to reach the greatest audience, you should use all of them, right? Well…not exactly. While utilizing each platform certainly can reach more people, the real question boils down to whether those are the right people that you should be reaching.

Each platform has its own merits, and each individually is worth advertising on. The key is determining which is right for the purpose you are looking to meet. Is this a brand awareness effort? Sales funnel entry? Sales funnel close? On top of what you want the customer to do, consider what are you capable of handling in order to achieve that. What’s your budget? Timing? Targeting strategy?

Running a marketing campaign that does not marry the needs of both you and your customer is doomed to fail, and much of that decision rests on the suitability of the marketing platform. Before you begin running any campaigns, reflect on what you’re trying to achieve and from what target audience before you make the advertising location decision.

Bonus Marketing Mistake #4? – Save Money and Do It All Yourself?

Whenever you do something yourself you’re always saving because you’re not spending, so that’s alway the best place to start! (I bet you know what I’m going to say next…) Yep, not always the best choice. While doing it yourself can always be a viable option, it’s important that you understand the fundamental concepts detailed above, because if you don’t, the overall return of your investment may not be as high as it otherwise could be when the proper steps are taken.

Sometimes the best path forward is to consult with the experts. If you’re gearing up to market your business and find yourself with this need, drop us a line, and let’s get to know each other!