Few business activities hold the power of success or failure to the same extent as online (and offline) marketing. If you’re looking to take your marketing tactics into overdrive, learning what not to do is just as impactful as impactful as discovering what you should do.
Relying on Intent-Based Marketing Strategies
Intent-based marketing advertises a product/service from the perspective of intention. For example, PPC campaigns on Google. Users search for a specific product, or answer to a problem, and find your product/service as it provides a solution for their problem. This customer found your business via intent. While effective, intent marketing shouldn’t be your only strategy.
Intrigue-based marketing reaches a demographic by crafting content and solutions not based on customer intent, but by stimulating intrigue. For example, a mattress retailer drives organic traffic to their website via blog posts detailing the health impact of different mattress materials. Instead of specifically advertising on an intent-based level, visitors are attracted by an intriguing topic.
Unclear Unique Selling Propositions (Why You’re Different)
“There’s nothing new under the sun.” This saying is becoming increasingly true within the marketplace. While your business may not be 100% unique in terms of its products or services, it does have something no other business can offer: your personality. This is what makes your business attractive to potential customers. Learn how to speak from your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and watch the customers flock to your business.
Silent Social Media Accounts
Even if your target demographic rarely utilizes social media, crafting a solid online presence among these platforms is paramount in the 21st Century. Consumers are more likely to purchase from a business who is active in social media. Moreover, Google views connected social media accounts as a way to determine ranking, which therefore plays a large role for first page SERP (Search Engine Results Page) ranking. As an added bonus, social media is an awesome way to take advantage of intrigue-based marketing tactics.
Inefficient Marketing Results Tracking/Analyzing
How well did your last blog post perform? Are your latest PPC campaigns boosting traffic, leads or conversions? Successful marketing is an equal balance of outward activity and inward analysis. Not tracking and analyzing marketing tactic results is like trying to run a marathon blindfolded. Integrate marketing campaign analysis solutions into your business and use this information to refine current and future outreach tactics.
Regarding Marketing as an Expense Instead of an Investment
What’s your marketing budget? Are you more focused on buying office equipment instead of spending money on marketing activities? While it’s easy to push aside marketing costs as it doesn’t offer instant results, doing so is disastrous for current and future success. Reconstruct your outlook on marketing cost as an investment. Even if your budget is limited, $50 spent on marketing is often a wiser decision than $50 on your favorite coffee.
Incorrect Target Demographic
Consumers expect to be spoken with on their level, not the other way around. If you aren’t spending time dissecting your demographic, it’s quite possible your marketing efforts are in vain as you’re marketing to the wrong audience. Finding a niche audience requires more work in 2018 than it did even a few years ago. The cornerstone in a demographic analysis is creating an ideal buyer psychological profile from actual data. Continually build upon this profile as your industry and demographic changes.
Not Studying Competitor Marketing Strategies
The fundamental difference between your success and that of your competitor is oftentimes due to a lack of competitor analysis. This is to say, your business may fail because you don’t study the marketing tactics of your closest competitors. Competitor marketing analysis not only opens up unique marketing avenues for your target audience, but shines a light on what methods your competitor uses to drive traffic and conversions. Don’t copy their techniques, use this data as a roadmap to guide your audience to a similar (but greater) experience.
Not Giving Away Free (Useful) Information
Nobody enjoys a stingy personality. Consumers have grown to despise this personality to an incredible degree. If a business fails to offer useful, unique and free information, a potential customer will likely purchase from a competitor who does. The goal here is to drive intrigue about your business by determining the biggest problems/questions your target audience has, and offering a complete, and free, solution.
Ignoring Current SEO Standards
Still, think keyword stuffing your blog posts will drive organic traffic? Think again! WooCommerce SEO is constantly changing, and failure to keep up with its evolution will essentially bury your business in no-man’s land (i.e. page 2 on Google). Subscribe to SEO newsletters, blogs, and podcasts. But don’t just listen, apply this knowledge to your marketing plan. If you can stay ahead of the curve, your online presence will not only stay strong, but so will your organic traffic and conversion rate.
As you can see, marketing these days requires more than simply blasting potential customers with an email newsletter or half-decent blog post. To impact your audience, you must adhere to current trends and expectations. Only then is it possible to transform your business from lackluster success to untold riches.
