Did you know that marketing your company doesn’t have to be hard or expensive? In fact, with a little creativity, you can generate serious interest in your company which can lead to more traffic, more customers, and more money.
While many business owners think those results would be awesome, especially on a beer budget, they often make some pretty silly marketing mistakes—mistakes that are easily avoidable.
Here are 37 of these mistakes and how you can avoid them, with examples of companies who’ve successfully employed these marketing tactics.
1. Avoiding Self-Promotion
The No. 1 marketing mistake you can make is not marketing at all.
There are numerous reasons why a small business owner might avoid self-promotion. They might be uncomfortable with self-promotion, not know where to start, or simply feel overwhelmed with other aspects of running their business. But failing to invest in marketing can have serious consequences for your business.
Without marketing, it’s difficult to reach new customers or build brand awareness, leading to stagnant growth or even a decline in sales.
In today’s digital age, consumers are bombarded with advertising and marketing messages from all angles. That’s why it’s more important than ever to have a strong marketing strategy that helps you stand out from the crowd and connect with your target audience.
One way to overcome a reluctance to market your business is to start small and focus on building a strong foundation. This might include:
- Defining your target audience.
- Creating a consistent brand message.
- Establishing a presence on social media.
By taking small steps and gradually building your marketing efforts, you’ll start to see results and gain confidence.
In the early days of my first company ACS (we provided marketing services), I used to write blog posts about companies that were messing up their internet marketing. I did this with Like.com back in 2006. Shortly after I published the post, the CEO called me and hired our company. Since this strategy worked so well, I tried it with other big-name companies like Yahoo and closed on about half of those contacts.
So, don’t be afraid to promote yourself.
2. Hold Secrets Close to the Vest
Google is probably the king of holding secrets close to the vest, but they’re big and can afford to. The rest of us need to reach out and give away the farm.
At my first company, I used to email companies and tell them in a systematic, step-by-step process how to fix their website problems and generate more traffic.
Not many of the companies I emailed responded, but TechCrunch did.
That led to a contract with TechCrunch to do all of their online marketing (growing their traffic by 30% in 60 days). I was then able to use their name to hook other big-name companies like Viacom.
Don’t be afraid to email companies and potential customers you think you can help. What’s the worst thing that they can do? Ignore your email?
3. Overly Paywalling Content
While big companies like The New York Times can get away with a paywall, it can lead to disastrous results for you. It may not ruin your chances of success, but it can surely slow down the adoption of your product by willing customers.
Dropbox entices users with a free limited edition of its product. They encourage people to invite other users. People usually exceed their storage limits and upgrade to a paid plan because they love Dropbox.
4. Ignoring SEO
Startups and small businesses are in a great position to leverage SEO, but so many push this strategy to the back burner. That’s a huge marketing misstep.
Why? Because a high ranking on Google can lead to more visitors to your website. I understand why a lot of companies don’t invest in SEO—it can be very expensive to hire a marketing firm.
The nice thing about SEO these days is that there’s so much information out there to help you easily do it yourself. You can read Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO to get the basics and then learn about advanced techniques like attracting high-authority backlinks over time.
Look at how Codecademy, a startup that leverages SEO, effectively uses keywords:
From the title and title tag to the description, that’s a powerful use of keywords that puts them on the top of search rankings. Now that’s really pretty simple!
5. Don’t Think You Need a Blog
I don’t care what kind of business you’re in—whether you target a very narrow niche or have mass appeal—you can benefit from blogging. Thinking otherwise can be a costly marketing mistake.
Fortune 500 companies like Marriott Hotels and Coca-Cola have very effective blogs that bring in visitors, generate interaction, and retain customers.
To blog effectively, you need to do the following:
- Host the blog on your site (yourdomain.com/blog).
- Write high-quality content that is 90% useful to your readers. Devote the other 10% to promotions.
- Respond to each blog comment. This creates trust and builds a community.
6. Not Getting Local Search
Not showing up where your customers are is a major marketing misstep. To leverage local search, small businesses should focus on optimizing their websites and online presence for local search keywords and phrases. This might include:
- Incorporating location-based keywords in your website copy.
- Creating location-specific landing pages.
- Ensuring that your business information is accurate and up to date across all online directories and review sites.
Another important strategy for leveraging local search is to claim and optimize your Google Business Profile listing (formerly Google My Business). This free listing allows you to provide important information about your business, including your hours, location, and contact information. It can also help your business appear prominently in Google’s local search results.
7. Snubbing Social Networks
Did you know that 82% of people in the United States have a social media profile?
That’s why your business needs to be on social media.
Avoiding social media is a big-time marketing mistake. Building up a profile on popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok can lead to a strong source of traffic, new opportunities, and, ultimately, customers.
Sure, it will cost money if you’re going to buy advertisements and pay someone to run the pages.
But it’s still less expensive compared to traditional marketing efforts.
Your business will benefit from social media.
You can build up your profiles quickly by sharing good content you create and find online. It may take about six to 12 months before your profiles become popular, so be patient. You might be discouraged if you don’t have tons of users following your page right away.
But give it time. That will change.
8. Avoiding Guest Author Opportunities
One of the easiest, most popular, and most proven methods to gain exposure, traffic, and leads is to write guest posts for other blogs. It just doesn’t make sense that more people don’t do this.
There are plenty of opportunities out there. Sites like Huffington Post, ProBlogger, and Lifehacker are always looking for new and fresh content.
Another simple way to find a guest blogging opportunity is to simply search “guest blogging opportunities [enter your industry].” Once you find a few sites that could use your guest posts, you should check out their guidelines.
Not only will guest blogging get your site exposure and traffic, but you’ll also get links to your site that will boost your SEO efforts.
9. Misusing Happy Customers
Too many companies create happy customers and then fail to leverage their happiness. That is truly missing an awesome opportunity to turn those customers into advocates.
Contact a few of your happy customers and ask them if you can do a case study. This is essentially how MarketingSherpa built its business.
After successful campaigns, they’d flip them into a case study. As they generated interest in their company, more and more companies started signing up. Eventually, big companies came calling after seeing all their successes.
But you don’t have to do a formal case study to leverage happy customers. Testimonials are also powerful tools. Satisfied customers are eager to share their excitement about your company, so make sure you capture and promote that excitement.
10. Ignoring Beginners
Some companies have an elitist attitude that ignores beginners. They think going after the experts will make them exclusive, elite, and big-time players. This usually backfires since you insult the beginners and have to focus on a smaller market.
Instead, treat beginners like royalty and cultivate them into loyal customers. The trick to doing this is creating “beginner guides.” Don’t let the name fool you. These guides could be short or long, but one thing they all have in common is how detailed they are.
Once you create a high-quality guide, give it away. This generates exposure, traffic, and lots of links to your site.
Moz wrote a great beginner’s guide on SEO. This book ranks high in the search engines:
Click through and you get to their landing page, where you can read the guide or download it. Of course, Moz includes a call to action (CTA) to join the Moz Pro service for free on the same page:
11. Fear of Speaking at Conferences
We got over 80% of our new clients through my speaking at conferences with my first company, in turn convincing many companies to hire us.
In any given year, our company could spend $100,000 on flights and hotels. That might sound like a lot, but some of these companies that we acquired were paying us $1.2 million a year. That $100,000 was, in effect, our marketing budget since speaking at conferences generated so much business.
Fortunately, you don’t have to spend that much money to make conferences work for you. Just search for speaking opportunities in your city. Often, it’s not the money that stops people from speaking at conferences. It’s the fear of speaking in public.
To be honest, everyone starts off scared of talking to an audience of strangers, but after a while, you get used to it. If you can’t get over that fear, encourage someone else in your company to do it. It will pay off big!
12. Not Tapping Into Affiliates
Affiliate programs are great for startups and small businesses with a limited budget. For a cut of the profit, these partners will promote and sell your product. That cut of the profit motivates these sellers, so in a lot of ways, affiliate marketing is performance-based marketing.
Penny stock trader superstar Timothy Sykes uses affiliate programs to generate about $13,000 a month from affiliates.
Affiliate marketing is perfect for cash-strapped companies because it doesn’t cost anything to run these programs.
13. Failing to Network
Let’s say you can’t speak at a conference. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attend one. These events go on all the time throughout the year, and they are excellent opportunities to meet new people, build relationships, and close business.
Not everyone you meet will lead to business, but for every person you meet, you suddenly know everyone they know. In other words, they might not be able to help you, but somebody they know could. You just need to ask them, but you need the relationship first.
One time I attended a conference in Santa Monica, where I met a guy named Francisco Dao. After spending time together, we decided to collaborate. I hired him to run a conference company I co-owned. He made the company hundreds of thousands of dollars and eventually started his own company.
Don’t make the marketing mistake of skipping conferences. Instead, get your name out there. You’ll never know what connections you can make if you don’t get out there.
14. Refusing to Comment on Blogs
I meet a lot of people who think commenting on blogs is a waste of time. It’s time-consuming, they say, and they struggle to figure out how it adds to the bottom line.
That’s when I name drop a long list of successful companies that made blog commenting a huge marketing strategy.
Take Mashable, for instance. Pete Cashmore made Mashable popular because he would leave detailed and insightful comments on other blogs, like TechCrunch. Over time, he left hundreds of comments. People would see his comments and then follow him over to his blog.
This is a simple and inexpensive tactic that helps to generate traffic to your website. Pencil in about 30 minutes a day to leave comments on other blogs.
15. Missing Out on Message Boards
People need help. And they go online all the time to look for that help. Some people just use Google, which is why SEO is so important. Others head to their favorite message board or Q&A sites like Quora to find answers.
This is a huge opportunity to find potential customers. If you devoted a half hour a day to answering questions related to your product and how it can solve people’s problems, you’d be amazed at the business you could generate.
The SEO marketing firm Single Grain is doing this effectively. Each day, they answer 10 companies on a marketing message board, which has led to about a 3% conversion rate for their consultation work. When one job equals five figures a year, that’s a pretty good return on minimal effort.
16. Refusing Referrals
Think about it: If you can get your business to run off of referrals, then you don’t have to do any marketing. All your clients come from recommendations from satisfied customers.
Now how’s that for an inexpensive way to generate business? Thing is, not a lot of companies have effective referral programs in place. Or they don’t have programs at all. That’s a digital marketing mistake to avoid.
Not capitalizing on referrals leaves a lot of money on the table.
It’s really quite simple. Just email them after you’ve completed a project they are happy with and ask them for a referral. Or follow them on LinkedIn, check out their connections, and ask for an introduction.
17. Forgetting About YouTube and Video
The kind of traction you can get on YouTube is huge. Just look at a company like Blendtec. They’ve been using videos to build a great company, and it all pretty much started when they dropped an iPhone into one of their blenders.
Of course, they were grinding up bricks and stuff before to show off the power of their product. Some of those videos got 3 million views. But it was the iPhone that went viral and got a lot of attention. That led to appearances on Jay Leno and other talk shows.
But going viral isn’t the only great thing about YouTube. Videos are an obvious option for companies that sell products you can demonstrate how to use. But videos are also great for SEO purposes, too. You can generate top rankings with a properly optimized video.
You can also use the videos from your YouTube channel on other digital marketing platforms.
Don’t forget about Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok videos, either.
Videos are engaging and help capture the attention of consumers. Video content marketing is a great strategy to get people to check out your website.
There are a couple of key takeaways from this graphic.
First, over half of the respondents to this survey have seen a video advertisement on the internet over a one-month time period. Second, 43% of those people viewed a website after seeing the video.
So, if you’re not using videos to advertise, remember that your competition is.
Videos generate new leads and, ultimately, lead to conversions.
If you’ve never used videos as a marketing technique, that’s OK. But it’s time for you to learn how to get started with video marketing.
18. Never Slashing Prices
Offering a steep discount might cut into your profit margins, but think about the exposure you get if you bring in a ton of new customers. That’s your opportunity to turn those new visitors into loyal patrons.
This is where tapping a service like Groupon or LivingSocial can give you a major boost in leads.
Not long ago, a friend of mine created an event called Tomato Battle. His strategy was to get 2,000 people to sign up. He charged $59 for a ticket, but with Groupon and Living Social, he slashed prices 50%.
He sold over 1,000 tickets in a few short days. The Groupon deal closed, and so word spread that people could buy tickets at his website. He sold about 1,000 more at the regular price. He’s never had to do another discount because his event is so popular.
Positioning your product with a great offer is guaranteed to not only get you sales, but it can also generate tons of exposure for you. People love to share great deals with their friends, families, and social networks.
19. Overlooking Exceptional Customer Service
Lots of companies focus on creating the killer product. What they fail to do is support that product adequately on the back end, after the sale. That leads to poor customer service, which leads to unsatisfied customers and bad word of mouth.
That’s a major marketing mistake. Why? Because you can improve the lifetime value of your customers by giving them extraordinary customer service.
Zappos is a famous example of a company with great customer service. Their customer service reps are trained not to ask questions when someone wants to return a product. They’ll often even upgrade your shipping to next-day air for free.
Great customer service is a critical component of a successful marketing plan. It can create happy customers who become advocates and raving fans—which doesn’t cost you a dime!
So invest in giving your customers the best experience ever.
You spend so much time, money, and effort to acquire and retain your customers.
Don’t let them leave because they experienced bad customer service.
It will kill your marketing campaign and ROI. Customers are too valuable—you can’t afford to lose any of them.
20. Lazy About Getting Press
Startups are often obsessed with making their products better and assume the press will come knocking at their door as a result. Anybody who’s been in that position knows that just never happens. You have to get off your butt and go after the press.
The cool thing about getting press is that these companies are looking for news. They want to hear about your great company. You just have to pitch them your idea.
Naturally, getting that press drives traffic to your website.
But don’t just focus on the big players. Also look to bloggers, who can be a stepping stone to getting the attention of big media. Email them and ask if they’ll interview you. Not everyone will do that, but eventually someone will say yes.
One time I emailed Search Engine Journal to see if they wanted to interview me. They said yes and published the interview, which in turn drove traffic to our blog. From that traffic, we picked up several customers.
Don’t be afraid to make yourself available for interviews. The worst someone could do is ignore your email.
21. Forgetting Mobile Users
Everyone has a phone in their pocket, and they use it for much more than just making calls. Make sure you’re not overlooking mobile customers.
Having a website isn’t enough. Your website needs to be optimized for mobile devices. Why? Bad mobile experiences can turn customers away from your business.
Did you know that almost half of web traffic worldwide comes from mobile devices? Yup, in the fourth quarter of 2022, mobile devices (not including tablets) generated a whopping 59.16% of global website traffic—meaning you need to prioritize your mobile users ASAP.
What kind of impression does this give your customers?
Well, 48% of people think that companies don’t care about their business if the website isn’t optimized for mobile users.
If applicable, you can also consider making a mobile app for your business.
If an app isn’t a fit for your business, you need to at least make sure that your site is mobile-friendly.
22. Never Using Discounts or Promotions
Reward your customers.
Offer discounts and promotions to encourage buying and get people to your doors and website.
Advertise your sales clearly. Promotions can also usually help increase your sales.
Offering a discount doesn’t mean that your customers won’t purchase items listed at full price.
Sure, they’ll pick up a few things at the discounted rate. If something else catches their eye, though, they may even be more willing to purchase it because they got a deal on the sale items.
Coupons are a powerful tool for building stronger relationships with your clients. In fact, a staggering 81% of consumers are willing to take additional action to redeem a rebate or coupon, like enrolling in a loyalty program.
Discounts are a great way to acquire new customers and retain your current clientele.
You can gain a significant advantage over your competitors if you start offering coupons to their customers.
23. Not Measuring ROI
How much money are you spending on your online marketing strategies?
What kind of return are you getting?
Don’t just blindly throw money at digital marketing strategies without measuring the return on investment (ROI).
Not measuring ROI is a major marketing mistake to avoid. If you don’t know your ROI, you don’t know if your strategies are working.
Unsuccessful campaigns can burn a hole in your checking account if you keep repeating them.
You need to stick to what’s working and either abandon or modify what’s not.
Calculating ROI isn’t as difficult as it sounds.
First, you need to figure out what it is you’re measuring. Common metrics include:
- Traffic
- Leads
- Click-through rates
- Conversions
Once you decide on a campaign goal, you can calculate your ROI.
Take the financial gain from your investment and subtract the cost of your investment.
Divide that number by the total cost of your investment.
That’s how you calculate ROI.
Make sure you determine the ROI of all your marketing campaigns moving forward. It’s the only way to gauge the success of your strategies.
24. Targeting Everyone
Whom are you targeting with your online marketing campaigns?
Everyone with a computer? People with smartphones? Anyone with Internet access?
These answers are incorrect. You need to narrow your target market.
Consider the demographics of your current and prospective customers.
Those are the people you should be targeting.
My step-by-step guide explains how to determine the demographics of your existing Facebook followers.
Use this information to enhance your marketing efforts. You may be surprised by what you discover.
Don’t make assumptions about the demographics of your customer base.
The image shows some quick stats that disprove some common stereotypes.
Based on this information, a skin and body care company can’t assume that its target audience is just women.
Once you narrow your target audience, you’ll have more success with your digital marketing campaigns. You’ll get more relevant leads this way.
Targeting everyone and anyone is also an inefficient way to spend money.
25. Having a Website That Is Too Slow
Slow websites lead to big problems for your company.
You spend all that time, money, and effort to drive people to your website—just to drive them away if it’s too slow.
People are impatient. It’s the nature of the internet.
Customers will abandon your website if it takes too long to load.
Don’t let your load time kill your bottom line.
If you need to spend more money to make sure your web hosting service is as fast as possible, do it. Make sure you’re hitting the mark on Core Web Vitals.
Every second counts, and you can’t afford to lose any customers.
If you’re not happy with your current web host, shop around and find another one.
Your page load time is too important for you to put up with mediocre service.
This needs to be a top priority for your company.
26. Spamming
Don’t spam your customers.
This should go without saying, but some people are spamming their customers without even knowing it.
How do you determine if you’re guilty?
First, look at past emails you’ve sent your customers. Ask yourself if each email is:
- Helpful
- Educational
- Relevant
Relevancy is extremely important.
Your message needs to be relevant to everyone on the recipient list.
Some of your emails may be relevant to some of your customers but not others.
Avoid this marketing misstep by using email segmentation lists.
The last thing you want to do is upset your subscribers.
They’ve already subscribed to your emails, which means they’re genuinely interested in your content.
Don’t make them unsubscribe by sending them emails they don’t want to see.
Give your customers options when they initially sign up to receive content. Ask them how often they want to receive emails. Do they want your monthly newsletter? Or do they want your weekly promotion? Both?
If customers only want to hear from you once a month, make sure you’re not contacting them every day.
They will unsubscribe and won’t get any of your future messages.
27. Not Converting Web Content to Visitors
You look at your website analytics and see the number of visitors continuing to grow.
This is great news.
You have triple the amount of traffic from the previous month, but your sales numbers are staying the same.
What’s the problem?
Your web traffic isn’t converting to sales.
How do you fix this?
Make sure your website is easy to navigate.
A Storyblok survey reveals that 60% of consumers abandon purchases if a website’s user experience (UX) isn’t up to snuff. Further, 42% of Americans admitted that they’ve been too embarrassed to confess where they purchased a product because the seller’s website design was so poor.
Your website visitors won’t put up with confusing layouts. It’s that simple.
If you have an e-commerce page, make sure there are plenty of search and filter options so users can quickly find what they want and make a purchase.
Consumers don’t want to spend much time scrolling and searching.
28. Disregarding Abandoned Shopping Carts
Have an e-commerce website? If so, how are you handling customers who add items to their shopping carts but don’t check out?
If your answer is nothing, you’re doing it wrong.
These customers are just one or two clicks away from finalizing a sale.
Why do customers abandon their carts instead of checking out?
- Mandatory account creation
- Long or unclear checkout process
- No discounts or promos
- Unexpected shipping costs
- Longer than expected delivery times
- Unclear or unfair return and refund policy
- Lack of payment options
- Payment security concerns
- Restrictions on product quantity
- Site speed and performance issues
The checkout process should be quick.
Try offering your customers free shipping, and don’t add extra fees if you can avoid it.
Don’t force people to create an account just to make a purchase.
Let them check out as a guest.
Make sure you have a secure checkout process so the customer feels comfortable submitting their credit card information online.
Optimizing your checkout process can increase conversions by over 35%.
If your customer has a profile with your company, send them a reminder email about the items in their cart.
29. Not Using Lead Validation
Lead validation separates your internet marketing sales leads from other conversions.
Where are your customers coming from?
- Customer service inquiries
- Solicitation
- Sales representatives
- Job applicants
- Empty submission forms
These are all possibilities.
Don’t just lump all your marketing analytics into one group and assume all your conversions came from the same place.
If you’re not validating your leads, you are overstating your campaign success—and committing a big-time marketing mistake.
Very few companies use validation, but creating a lead management process can be invaluable.
You might also consider hiring a lead validation team. The team will help give you a more accurate depiction of your lead-generation success rates.
You may discover that you’re spending extra money when you don’t need to.
Validating leads helps tighten your marketing budget in relationship to your ROI.
30. Poor Personalization Techniques
You need to be personal with your customers.
Sending out an email addressed “Hey everyone” is not an effective personalization technique. Instead, use customers’ first names.
You should also sign each message with your name. It’s more personal than “Sincerely, Company XYZ.”
Use your personal email address in the sender’s field.
Personalization helps you connect with your customers.
It makes them feel like they are hearing from a person rather than an automated and anonymous sender.
If you have retail store locations, speak to your customers when you see them.
Try to establish emotional connections.
Being personal is key to successful customer service.
Learning someone’s name can go a long way toward differentiating your company from the competition.
31. Overlooking Email Marketing
Email marketing is not dead. Assuming so is another marketing mistake to avoid.
If you’ve sent emails in the past and didn’t have much success, you should re-evaluate your methods.
You need to send marketing emails that actually generate a response.
Email marketing is extremely effective when you do it properly.
Compared to other marketing techniques, emails have a high ROI. One of the reasons it yields a high ROI is because the costs are so low.
If your company is overlooking emails, it’s a big mistake.
Make sure your emails are optimized for mobile devices. Over half of emails are opened from mobile phones.
Your customers may delete your email without reading it if it’s not optimized properly.
Don’t put email marketing on the back burner.
Continue to collect email addresses and send messages to your subscribers. It’s a great way to help retain your customers.
32. Not Using a Call to Action
What’s the goal of your marketing campaign?
How do you expect your customers to help you reach this goal?
If you have a great advertisement but no call to action, it’s virtually useless.
One of the only things worse than no call to action is a poor CTA.
“New customers get 5% off.” Does that sound enticing to you?
How about this instead? “Visit our website before midnight on Saturday to receive 20% off select items and free shipping on all purchases.”
Include a link to your website.
The second CTA is significantly more appealing to your customers. It gives them a reason to actually visit your site and a deadline by which to do it.
Separate your company from the crowd by using better CTAs.
33. Focusing on Acquisition, Not Retention
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not undervaluing the importance of customer acquisition.
You need to actively try to grow your customer base to survive.
With that said, customer acquisition is only half the battle.
Once you get a customer, you want to turn them into a customer for life. Not doing so is a marketing mistake to avoid.
What are you doing to retain customers?
If you don’t have an answer to this question, you’re behind.
Why put so much focus on retention? Because getting new customers is expensive. In fact, it can cost five to seven times more to obtain a new customer than to retain an existing one.
So, don’t spend your entire marketing budget on new customers.
Make sure a portion of those funds goes to customer retention.
34. Trying to Do It All Alone
Hire help.
You can’t do it all by yourself.
If you don’t excel in certain areas of marketing, find someone to fill the gaps.
Once you surround yourself with the right people, make sure everyone has a role. Here are some positions to consider adding to your marketing team:
- SEO person(s)
- Social media marketing person(s)
- Product marketing person(s)
- Content marketing person(s)
- Growth/paid person(s)
- Marketing operations person(s)
- Graphic design/web design person(s)
- Data and analytics person(s)
Another mistake that people make is not properly delegating tasks.
Sure, the members of your marketing team won’t work in isolation—their efforts will all work toward your marketing goals.
But everyone needs an assignment.
Your social media manager doesn’t need to be the same person who’s trying to increase website conversions through SEO.
35. Poor Budgeting
You need a marketing budget.
If you don’t, that’s your first marketing mistake.
The second common marketing misstep is not properly allocating the funds from their marketing budget.
If 100% of your marketing budget is going toward customer acquisition, then you’re neglecting customer retention.
Gartner shares how a diverse marketing budget should be broken down.
Source: Gartner
I’m not saying you need to follow this breakdown exactly.
But it’s a great illustration of a well-rounded marketing strategy, and your budget should reflect this plan accordingly.
Bad budgeting can also land you in financial trouble, especially if you’re not measuring your results.
Throwing money at unsuccessful marketing campaigns is a recipe for disaster.
Spending money on multiple avenues and campaigns can help hedge your bets in case certain promotions don’t work as well as you predict.
36. Not Setting Goals
Marketers need to set goals.
Realistic goals.
Create both short-term and long-term goals for your company. What do you want to accomplish? How do you plan on getting there?
Once you answer these questions, you can start to plan your marketing strategy.
Here are some tips to help you set goals using the SMART method.
Source: Smart Insights
Make sure everyone on your marketing team understands your goals.
Communication is key.
Everyone’s efforts need to work toward achieving the established goals.
Goals will also help you allocate your marketing budget (as we just discussed).
37. Not Promoting Your Website
This one should be a no-brainer. But too many marketers aren’t promoting their websites.
Having a great website isn’t even half of the battle. How are you drawing customers to it?
You can increase your website traffic without using SEO.
Try different strategies like banner advertisements to promote your website.
Having a website isn’t enough.
You need to drive traffic—from both new and existing customers—to the website through online marketing tactics.
FAQs
What are improper marketing strategies?
Improper marketing strategies are those that are not aligned with your business goals, target audience, or brand identity. These can include tactics like spamming, using clickbait, or using aggressive or deceptive sales tactics. Improper marketing strategies can damage your reputation, alienate potential customers, and ultimately hurt your bottom line.
What are the top marketing mistakes small businesses make?
One of the top marketing mistakes small businesses make is not having a clear understanding of their target audience. Without knowing who your ideal customer is, it’s difficult to create effective marketing campaigns that resonate with them. Other common mistakes include not tracking your marketing metrics, not having a consistent brand message, and not investing enough in your marketing efforts.
What are some marketing mistakes?
Some common marketing mistakes include:
- Not setting clear goals.
- Not knowing your target audience.
- Not testing your campaigns.
- Not tracking your metrics.
- Not investing enough in your marketing efforts.
- Failing to tailor your messaging and content to your audience, leading to ineffective or irrelevant campaigns.
What is a common mistake in content marketing?
One common mistake in content marketing is creating content that is too promotional or sales-focused. Instead of providing value to your audience, this type of content can come off as pushy or irrelevant, leading to disengagement and lost opportunities. Another mistake is failing to optimize your content for search engines, which can make it difficult for potential customers to find your content and engage with your brand.
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{
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What are improper marketing strategies?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “
Improper marketing strategies are those that are not aligned with your business goals, target audience, or brand identity. These can include tactics like spamming, using clickbait, or using aggressive or deceptive sales tactics. Improper marketing strategies can damage your reputation, alienate potential customers, and ultimately hurt your bottom line.
”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What are the top marketing mistakes small businesses make?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “
One of the top marketing mistakes small businesses make is not having a clear understanding of their target audience. Without knowing who your ideal customer is, it’s difficult to create effective marketing campaigns that resonate with them. Other common mistakes include not tracking your marketing metrics, not having a consistent brand message, and not investing enough in your marketing efforts.
”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What are some marketing mistakes?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “
Some common marketing mistakes include:
- Not setting clear goals.
- Not knowing your target audience.
- Not testing your campaigns.
- Not tracking your metrics.
- Not investing enough in your marketing efforts.
- Failing to tailor your messaging and content to your audience, leading to ineffective or irrelevant campaigns.
”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What is a common mistake in content marketing?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “
One common mistake in content marketing is creating content that is too promotional or sales-focused. Instead of providing value to your audience, this type of content can come off as pushy or irrelevant, leading to disengagement and lost opportunities. Another mistake is failing to optimize your content for search engines, which can make it difficult for potential customers to find your content and engage with your brand.
”
}
}
]
}
Conclusion
Marketing doesn’t have to be hard or expensive. It really only requires you to be creative.
I hope you find success by avoiding these simple marketing mistakes. Correcting just one of these errors will have a positive impact on other mistakes that you’re making.
Don’t get overwhelmed.
I’m willing to bet you’re doing a lot of these things properly. Take time to set realistic goals for how you want to improve.
The time you invest will be worth it as you grow your business!
Do you know of any other boneheaded marketing mistakes to avoid?