10 Biggest Marketing Mistakes & How To
Avoid Them...

01 - ADVERTISING The simple fact is most advertising simply does not work. Unless your business is the size of Macdonalds or Coca Cola, advertising is a complete waste of money. If you are spending money on advertising and you do not know if it is working, (and by working I mean delivering a substantial return for every pound spent), stop it - immediately. 02 - COPYING COMPETITORS Lots of business owners I speak to fall into this trap. They see competitors in a magazine, at a trade show or on a piece of direct mail and then do the same because otherwise they feel left behind. There are 2 reasons not to do this. 1 - unless you know what return they make from their marketing activity there's no reason to assume it's successful, they might be bankrupt! 2 - most businesses are average, doing average marketing, achieving average profits. To excel and be ultra successful, you need to avoid what everyone else does and do the extraordinary. 03 - FAILING TO MEASURE ROI If you do not measure the return on every pound you spend against the return it delivers - you do not know if you are making or losing money on each activity. If you don't know this, you're working blind and you can't make informed decisions on what marketing to stop and what marketing to roll out on a much larger scale. 04 - FAILING TO TEST Clients of mine often say things like, "Oh no, we can't try direct mail, it would be too expensive if it didn't work." These views are common and totally false. If you carefully test various marketing methods before spending large amounts of money you will never take an uneducated risk. The client that made the comment above sent 100 letters to his existing customers at an approximate cost of £50. He generated over £15,000 of sales. How expensive is it NOT to test? 05 - RELYING ON ONE TYPE OF MARKETING A healthy marketing mix is essential. A client of mine used to rely solely on email marketing, until their biggest competitor started doing the same and their new business was halved overnight. If you rely on just one type of marketing you are not only vulnerable to competitors, you are missing out on literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF POUNDS in untapped wealth sat right in front of you which can be yours be carefully testing and measuring new types of marketing. 06 - BUY AND BLAST APPROACH So many clients of mine have suffered the same fate. The have bought a database of potential customers (or so they thought!) created a marketing campaign, executed the campaign and got a limited, or even worse, no response. This then puts them off forever. There ARE great lists out there but the BEST lists are the ones you create yourself. Get people to opt in to receive something they need from you - and then build trust with them. That way, when they're ready to buy they WILL use you. 07 - ALWAYS THE FIRST BALL TO BE DROPPED Within small and medium sized businesses, when things are going well, marketing activity stops. When things are going badly and cut backs are being made, marketing is the first thing to go. Most business people don't realize is how incredibly CRUCIAL it is to be marketing CONTINUOUSLY throughout these times for the long term stability of the business. You're now one of those business people who do know. 08 - IGNORING YOUR CUSTOMERS Within small and medium sized businesses, when things are going well, marketing activity stops. When things are going badly and cut backs are being made, marketing is the first thing to go. Most business people don't realize is how incredibly CRUCIAL it is to be marketing CONTINUOUSLY throughout these times for the long term stability of the business. You're now one of those business people who do know. 09 - NOT OFFERING GUARANTEES Offering a guarantee with your product or service has an incredible effect on leads generated, conversions and sales. The thing that puts people off doing this is they assume a guarantee has to be
a 100% money back guarantee. It doesn't. It can be a delivery guarantee, a quality based guarantee, even an environmentally friendly guarantee. A guarantee, in some cases will QUADRUPLE your conversion rates. 10 - MARKETING BY COMMITTEE Everyone has an opinion on marketing. Your friends, colleagues, employees, family, even people you've never met before will tell you their opinion on your marketing. The fact is, they wouldn't stand over a heart surgeon who was performing a triple heart bypass and say "Actually, I'd do it like this". But with marketing they can, just because marketing is about people. My advice is this: test, measure different marketing methods and creative messages. Record the response rates they deliver - only change the things the results tell you to and over time your marketing will become so strong and powerful that you will only listen to one person's opinion - yours. Download the Free Insider Guide to Marketing Success: