Avoid These 3 Marketing Mistakes

2017-11-09 10:00:00 | Khylie Gardner | marketing tips

Marketing gets a bad rap – but the truth is that it isn’t easy to do. If it were, everyone would do it (they don’t) and be killing the game (they aren’t). Many small businesses lack the expertise to produce marketing collateral and content that simultaneously grabs our attention, communicates effectively and drives us to action. Luckily, that’s where we come in. We’re here to help you on your way to marketing greatness by telling you the 3 marketing mistakes that everyone makes and how to avoid them.

The 3 Marketing Mistakes Everyone Makes

Content That Isn’t Strategic

We’ve said it once, we’ll say it a million more times: you can’t phone in good content. Many small business owners make this marketing mistake because they know that content is important but have absolutely no idea how to create it effectively. Among other things, good content should:

Be only as long as it needs to be
Have a point and make it
Have been proofread
Have a strong call-to-action

Sounds obvious, right? We think so, too! Before you put anything out in the world, ask yourself if it fulfills all of these must-haves. If not, your content is probably hurting you more than it’s helping. For more in-depth content help, we recommend the Content Marketing Institute for everything you need to know about creating content that rocks.

Feeling stuck in your marketing? Learn how to address the 4 roadblocks that are probably standing in your way.

Using the wrong channels

The digital marketing world isn’t going anywhere. At least not anytime soon. In fact, we’ve gotten to a point where small business owners have so many options when it comes to deciding where to communicate their message that they often end up choosing the wrong platforms. This is a marketing mistake we see all the time: marketers rush ahead without understanding their audiences, and invest in the wrong channels, or just in too many channels. If you aren’t sure where your audience lives online, check out this guide for finding them on social media.

Ignoring feedback

You know you’re awesome, we know you’re awesome, but somewhere along the way, your small business is probably going to encounter some less-than-awesome feedback. The most important thing you can do when this happens? Listen. Sure, there will always be internet trolls and we don’t recommend giving them the time of day, but your critics also offer honest feedback about what is not working for them about your products and services. The worst marketing mistake you can make is to create a bubble of positivity around yourself and your business. Not only will doing this make it impossible for you to ever improve, but negative situations are also more likely to balloon into full blown crises that could have been easily avoided.

The good news is, you can always come back from even the worst marketing mistake. So even if you’re not off to a great start, there’s still plenty of opportunities to turn it around and create a marketing strategy that rules.