Having a marketing plan is an important proponent of successful marketing. However, the process you follow to develop your marketing plan is equally important. We discuss these marketing plan mistakes so you don’t have to! Developing the right marketing plan will connect you with your target customers, introduce your products and services to the market, get people talking more about your business, and set your company up for success. On the flip side, thoughtless marketing can do the opposite.
There are common mistakes that you may experience as you plan your marketing strategy or even after you’ve executed your marketing plan. If you’re making these four mistakes, there’s time for you to fix them.
4 Marketing Mistakes you Should Avoid
- Skipping research and testing
This is a common marketing error that many companies make. Doing market research and testing will save you time and money because it will help you to predict how your promotions and products will perform even before you launch your campaign.
Market research and testing give you a snapshot of how your target market will respond to your campaign. This will help you to flag down some of the ineffective ideas before you even put them into practice.
For you to understand how the public will respond to your marketing campaigns, you should do your due diligence. Start with developing some offers, packages, prices, and promotions, and then see how your target clients will react to each.
- No website
A common issue amongst most small businesses that do not have websites is that they don’t see the need for having one. The reasons vary from, “it won’t get enough traffic” to “we don’t have the time to maintain and update it.” While you’ve probably thought about business card printing, a website is like a giant business card, and it can effectively showcase your services and products to potential customers.
Your business could have survived without a website some ten years ago. Your brick-and-mortar business could just advertise locally and create new relationships with customers to gain word-of-mouth exposure. However, that was before free Wi-Fi and affordable smartphones.
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- Forgetting to capture repeat clients
If you focus all your attention on just acquiring new customers, you will miss revenue from repeat customers. While it’s important to acquire new clients, it isn’t as profitable as marketing to your existing customers. According to Ring Central, getting a new customer is five times more expensive than selling to your existing customer.
Repeat customers don’t face as many hurdles purchasing as they already trust your business. Additionally, the more a customer purchases from you, the more likely they’re to continue buying from you. Therefore, avoid this expensive mistake by devoting your resource to capture repeat customers as you still get new ones.
- A superficial approach to SEO
According to the Search Engine Journal, approximately 93% of online experiences start with the search engine. With billions of blog posts popping up on the interest daily, the only way to gain visibility is by optimizing your content for search engines. Remember, SEO is an always-changing game, and you will need to always be on your toes to ensure that you understand the latest rules.
Marketing Mistakes Happen
Sometimes, careful planning isn’t enough to stop marketing mistakes from happening. If you note that your marketing plan isn’t working to generate the response you expected, then take some time to reflect on what went wrong. Alternatively, you may want to consider outsourcing some of your marketing aspects.