Are You Making Any Of These Marketing Mistakes?

Most of the business advice out there is telling you what you should do. But we’ve found it equally, if not more valuable, to ask our mentors what we shouldn’t do.

You can learn a lot from hearing experienced entrepreneurs tell you tales of all the times they made mistakes and paid dearly for it.

We’re going to tell you of the biggest marketing mistakes that we or our mentors have made.

Here Are The Marketing Mistakes in No Particular Order!

Mistake #1 – Not Defining there Marketing Strategy.

Most Marketers jump straight chasing traffic and go straight for the sale. Wasting Time and Money NOT doing the basics of Market Strategy.

‘There are NO Traffic Problems

ONLY Offer Problems…’

― Ryan Deiss, author DigitalMarketer.

It all starts with a Marketing Strategy.

If you drawn out (on paper) a simple Marketing Strategy, a simple flow chart. Then you can focus on each section of the process and become good then great at each section. Applying the knowledge you learn.

1/ Start with the End in mind, your ideal customer and the offers.
2/ Draw out on paper your Marketing Strategy as a simple flow chart, so it is clear.
3/ Go deep by defining each section and become good then great at each section eg Facebook Article Ads, Landing Pages, Email copy etc.
4/ Do 80% action and only 20% watching training videos.

Knowledge is Useless Without Purposeful Implantation and Focused Action…

By defining and understanding each section of your Marketing Strategy you will save time and headaches by focusing on, studying and implementing what really matters.

Then you can work on your Customer Acquisition Process how you get customers effectively and efficiently. Type of ads, defined the demographics and socioeconomic of your ideal customer.

As well as Offer Strategy, how different offers can be used from lead magnets to up sell offers etc. Cheaper front end offers leading to high profit back end products and or membership/renewal/update fees.

Then down the track you will work out your CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) the cost to acquire a customer. And the LTV (Life Time Value) of a Customer. That way you will know how much you can afford to send in ads to acquire a customer.

Mistake #2 – Is NOT Developing and Maintaining a Marketing Focus.

Marketing to everyone is marketing to no one…

Focus on your idea customer and that market.

Mistake #3 – is the Lack of a Compelling Offer.

You need something that stimulates people to take action now. In marketing it comes down to being emotionally aware… People buy, take action on their emotions. People are motivated by their feelings and emotions.

As a entrepreneur your focus is marketing, first. You need something that stimulates people’s feelings, so they are emotionally involved to take the action NOW!

You must be specific:
“Here’s my best offer today and only today, and here’s what you’ll get when you order right now.”
You must give prospects a specific call to action that motivates immediate action.

Here’s an example using a Landing Page…

When a visitor comes to your Landing Page, also know as an Opt In page. You want them to… Opt In (Take Action) and do it Now!

A good landing page normally has these features;

– Relevant image, text, colors that helps a person to FEEL that emotion that you’re offering them the solution for. They FEEL it will fix their problem. Also that it works faster and it’s easy… eg. happier life, healthy, time freedom, financial security, wealthy, warm and fuzzy etc.
An airline advertisement doesn’t show just their planes they show images of a tropical beach with a happy family, people catching up with kids and grandparents. All the feel good emotional images, that they deliver. Not boring planes.

– Have a single Offer, you don’t want to have multiple offers or distractions on the one page. We want them to take one action only. ‘Click’ ‘Cha Ching’

– The Offer needs to be compelling ‘Best Price’ ‘Lifetime Warranty’ ‘100% Money Back, no questions asked’

– It needs to imply that the Offer is ‘Timely’ or has ‘Scarcity’ – ‘How long can you survive with out this?’ ‘Last Chance’ ‘Limited Seats’

Mistake #4 – Is Having No Deadlines.

This is two fold…
–  As a Marketer you must include urgency in your offers.
–  To get more done be an Action Taker – Stick to your self-imposed deadlines.

Firstly… Deadlines in your content, articles and advert to get viewers to take action. The fear of loss is an extremely strong emotional buying trigger. It increases the response rate of our prospects.

The other is… Deadlines are important as a marketer. We need to set deadlines to get things done. It increases our response. The rate to make things happen, finish that offer, that product, that webinar or landing page.

Hey it’s so cruisey (laid back) sitting around the pool, on the back deck or reclined back in our office chair. I am (Dave) and I’m so lucky having Nicky setting project deadlines as I have to get them done. I don’t want to be thought of as slacker and letting people down.

An example was our first ever webinar… We set the day and time and then started on putting all the content together and we did the webinar and it wasn’t 100% perfect. A few little technical glitches. However it was a huge success and I doubt our viewers knew the issues we faced.

Now if we decided to NOT set a deadline we may not have done that first webinar. If we didn’t do it we wouldn’t have learnt many things. They included those emotional aspects of working together under the pressure of a deadline, plus the technical issues we had to find a solution for.

As entrepreneurs our greatest asset is the ability to over come problems and challengers to make it happen. We are problem solvers.

Entrepreneurs don’t get paid for their time. We get paid for solving problems for people. The bigger and more problems we solve for more people. The more value we bring to the market place and the more numeration we can collect.

Mistake #5 – is Not Using Testimonials enough in your Marketing.

In most cases, what other people say about you is much more convincing to a prospect than what you say about yourself. They expect you to toot your own horn, but they pay attention when someone else does it.

Word of mouth is very valuable. So gather and use as many testimonials as possible.

Mistake #6 – is Failing to Measure the Results of your Marketing, and then Beating your Personal Best.

Every single dollar should be accountable, so you know what works and what doesn’t. To do that track everything.

When you know one type of promotion is working like crazy, and another is going over like a lead balloon, you can cut the latter and focus on the former.

Mistake #7 – is Failing to Follow up with your Prospects, or Just Not Enough.

Most small business owners aren’t good in this area at all. They give up on their prospects way too soon.

Keep your best offers in front of them on a regular basis, and it will pay off in sales. This can be done with a broadcast email and being seen on social media.

Mistake #8 – Trying to be Cute and Funny in Advertising.

Forget the clever, image-based ads that work only for huge corporations like Pepsi or Samsung. They generally lack any kind of direct response message they focus on brand awareness instead.

For most small business owners, use direct-response marketing that’s specific and asks them to take a specific action as quickly as possible.

Mistake #9 – Using Bad Sales Copy.

The right words are important, so you have to develop (or buy) good copywriting skills.

Copywriting in ads must compel people to take the actions you want them to take. The time and money you spend learning this skill can be one of the best investments you’ll ever make.

Mistake #10 – Too Much Reliance on 1 Advertising Channel.

For best results, you must diversify. Putting all your eggs in one marketing basket is a bad idea. Multiple streams of income will help you survive if one or more dries up.

The more those that you can do, the less reliant you’ll be on any one method. Just make sure it’s all trackable so you know what’s working and what’s not. Remember to get good at one method before you learn another.

Mistake #11 – Snubbing Social Networks

Most people who are not in marketing will think that social media is just a waste of time. They think it’s a never-ending cocktail party where work never gets done.

That’s unfortunate because building up a profile on the popular social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ can lead to a good source of traffic, new opportunities and ultimately customers.

Are You Making Any of These Marketing Mistakes Right Now?

If Yes…

Identify the areas you’re weak within your own marketing. Once you understand these problems, you can start working to fix them now. And once you fix them, you can make more of the money that could and should be yours.

We will keep adding to this list of marketing mistakes. If you have any to add than comment below!

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Talk Soon,

Nicky & Dave