Marketing is a vital aspect for every business (big or small) to promote their offerings and connect with their audience. However, it is often various businesses make several common marketing mistakes that hinder their growth and prevent them from reaching their marketing goals.

Every marketer makes (some) mistake. With so many things on their plate, like managing a team, analyzing results, optimizing sites, and many more, errors are bound to come the way. Furthermore, it can cost up to thousands of dollars to fix a single marketing mistake. However, these frequent errors can be avoided. In this blog, we will cover 5 common marketing mistakes and how to fix them.

Before we get started with the common errors in marketing strategies, let us shed light on why marketing strategies are vital for businesses, whether they are B2B or B2C.

 

Why strategies for marketing are important?

 

Marketing strategies help understand and communicate with your audience in a better manner. It’s your guide to who you target, how you talk about your business, and how you differentiate yourself from all other businesses in your industry. It is the strategic foundation of your marketing house.

Moreover, a marketing strategy builds brand loyalty and customers for life while giving you a clear path to follow and a concise way of explaining your value to others. Therefore, it is vital for scaling success for any business.

However, several marketers often tend to make some common mistakes while ideating marketing strategies for their businesses. These common marketing errors create a barrier to their growth and success. In this blog, we will learn the 5 common marketing mistakes made by businesses and the methods to fix them.

 

5 Common Marketing Mistakes

 

1. Targeting the wrong audience.

 

You can have the most impactful campaign, sales copy as well as a funnel. However, the right eyes are not eying it and need to see it. Targeting the wrong set of audiences is one of the most common marketing mistakes made by businesses of all sizes. A wrong set of target audiences can decelerate the purpose of the campaign. Moreover, every campaign needs to be tailored according to the requirements and preferences of the audience. Therefore, it is vital to personalize marketing strategies according to the preferences of the audience.

 

The fix:

Be empathetic, and research what customers care about. Using surveys and questionnaires to directly connect with customers is an effective and helpful solution and Google Forms is a great tool to use for this. Ask questions about their purchasing experience, interests, pain points and needs.

Additionally, make use of free platforms like Google Analytics to collect customer data. Market reports, case studies, white papers and other secondary resources are great for improving targeting, too. All of your findings need to be used to create specific buyer personas. Tailor calls to action, sales copy and landing pages to each group for maximum return.

 

2. Not being consistent.

 

Marketing is about consistency.  A consistent look and feel to your materials, the tone of your brand language, and the cadence with that you produce and publish content is the only way to achieve good results.

If you hire a stellar agency to create lead generation assets but do not update your brand (e.g. website, logo, product materials) or overall message you are setting yourself up for failure. Your marketing establishes the initial impression your customer has of your company and you must carry that brand promise through the experience of delivering your product or service.

 

The fix:

In marketing, consistency is the king. You can be consistent by engaging with your customers on social media daily. Responding and reacting to their comments or posts can help boost engagement. With this knowledge in tow, you can more easily understand which content is driving engagement and which posts are dropping followers. You can also make content creation a daily habit to help you with maintaining consistency.

 

3. Not Launching Campaigns on time.

 

The perfect campaign can only make the desired impact and generate the desired outcome only when it is launched at the appropriate time. If a campaign is pushed back, that means results and revenue will be, too. Not good.

 

The fix:

Every blunder can be fixed. Likewise, you can fix this common marketing mistake in two ways. Firstly, set clear milestones for every project, no matter how big or small. These might include:

• Creating a project outline.
• Setting key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Choosing the target audience.
• Setting budget requirements.
• Deciding on distribution and marketing channels.

Secondly, run the plan by your entire team so everyone is accountable. Ensure that every person and the department has their own milestones and KPIs. Lastly, check-in every set period (weekly, for example) to ensure that the campaign is progressing as planned.

 

4. Overspending on campaigns.

 

Be honest. Have you ever started an advertising campaign and spent way over budget? The most likely culprit is that you simply left the campaign on or didn’t set a limit. If it hasn’t happened yet, consider yourself lucky. Overspending on campaigns and their promotions is a very common marketing mistake made by marketers.

Either way, one of the first ways to avoid this happening is by having a clear checklist for each campaign. It might look like this:

• Set campaign goals (leads, traffic, etc.).
• Set a daily/monthly budget.
• Produce sales copy and creatives.
• Double-check settings.
• Launch campaign.
• Check in at least once per day.

 

5. Broken Forms, Links And Checkout Systems

 

Think of a sales funnel as individual steps that lead to the end goal: the sale. Every single step needs to be as easy and streamlined as possible. This maximizes how many users will convert. This is because it makes their experience smoother and more enjoyable. If there are constant bugs, interruptions and hiccups, they’ll be clicking the back button as fast as possible.

 

The fix:

It’s typical for little things along the way to get messed up. That’s OK. However, they can cost you leads and sales. There’s one simple way to avoid this: Test your funnels! Yes, it’s really that simple. Nothing should get launched without thorough testing. Go through the funnel, and click every button and link. Engage with the page as a real customer would. Ask yourself questions such as:

• Do the forms work?
• Are links correct and functional?
• Do buttons work?
• Are pages responsive on all devices?
• Can payments be sent and received properly?
• Do cart and checkout systems work?

Fix anything that isn’t working as intended, and get important pages perfect. Once everything is greenlit, launch it with confidence.

 

So, what did we learn?

 

The above-mentioned common marketing mistakes can cost you a lot (if not managed and tackled well). Many of these can be prevented by having thorough systems and steps in place. Double-check progress, integrations and settings on a regular basis. Nothing will slip through the cracks this way. Test every page, product and funnel before it’s offered to the public, as well. Obvious bugs will hurt customer experience, performance and branding.

 

Also Read: 5 Digital Marketing Tips For Small Businesses