Consider the fact that about 70% of a consumer’s buying decision is made before they even speak to a sales person. They’re not even in your sales funnel yet and they’re 70% of the way to buying the product. This really tells you how significant marketing can be on your businesses long term sustainability.
Whether you come from a marketing background, or are purely in business on your own, there are several sins that will leave your marketing campaign dead in the water. Whilst campaigns might develop from a trial and error system, these are 5 rules that you can’t forget when developing your campaign!
Top 5 Marketing Sins
1) Never Forget Your Audience
All these sins might sound obvious, but there’s always more to it than meets the eye. Never forgetting your audience isn’t actually about you, it’s about them. Listen to your audience. What are they thinking, what are they feeling, what are they missing. Do they want to talk about costs, talk about them. Do you solve 25 problems, but have 2 outstanding unsolved problems. Talk about them, the good, and the bad, and sometimes the ugly. Share problems, find solutions. The content that you want your audience to know, isn’t necessarily the content that they want to know. Make sure you bridge the gap, and find out what it is that they want. While you might not think it, there’s always a big difference between the two.
2) Don’t Neglect Your Competition
Almost every market nowadays is so saturated there is bound to be someone down the road doing something similar. While you might want to think you have the best product, with the best price, and the best benefits, your audience doesn’t know that. Shop around. Make sure you know what the pros and cons are of not just your business products, but other businesses too. As tricky as this is, try and approach this exercise and market research from a non-biased perspective. Every business has a bias, but remember, your customer or client doesn’t. They just want to know unbiased facts.
3) Leaving Out Emotion
It’s a common misconception that buyers from any sector are entirely rational and buy purely with rational reasoning. Whether B2C, B2B, or any other environment, buyers are emotional and are driven by emotions. This isn’t to say that rationality doesn’t play a part, because it does, but emotion is something that all of us have. Whilst new iterations of AI are quite scary, they’re not quite good enough to understand emotion and context.
4) Thinking You’re Different To Everyone Else
Now again, this isn’t as straight edged as offering a different product. Yes you might have some patent approved product that simply can’t exist anywhere else because you own the rights to it and every other variation under the sun. That makes your product different, but it doesn’t make you different. Every business is in the business of trust. You have to get the customer to trust you, regardless of if you have something unique. Of course toot your own horn and address your strengths, and why your business has something great, but don’t assume people will buy something simply because you’re there. Be honest and open about what you’re offering. Consumers love trust and integrity.
5) Not Seeking Innovation
Don’t get tunnel vision and assume that just because ‘route A’ is the way that something has always been done, it is the only way. Seek to challenge the status quo, not abide by it. Yes, some trials will end in failure. That is business. Seek to push and innovate. Challenge the norms.
Final Thoughts
Avoiding these 5 marketing sins will go a long way to improving your content, ROI, and ultimately your customers experience! If you’d like to find out more about digital marketing, contact us here for a free consultation!
