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What our members have to say...
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"I would like to thank you for your site which I found by chance. Thanks to you I found an investor and was able to set up my limousine company in Geneva (Switzerland)."
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Dominique PIOGER - www.domlimousine.com |
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10 Catastrophic Marketing Mistakes and How To Avoid Making Them
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As global markets tighten and customers become ever more discerning, you really can not afford to blow your chances of a sale through making any one of the following marketing mistakes. They’re simple mistakes to make but potentially fatal for your business.
1. No market research
A business based purely on your ‘good feeling about it’ or the support of friends and family is a risky one. You need to test your product and your potential market before you begin.
You need to be able to answer the following questions: Do customers want what you have and will they pay a price that will be profitable for you? What are your potential competitors doing to sell their product or service? How will your product be different from what is already available? Are there segments within your target market that are not being served? Is that segment of the market big enough for you to make a sustainable profit? Does that segment have the potential to grow? How much of that segment do you need before your business breaks even and moves into profit? Are there already too many competitors in that segment of the market? Is there a weakness in the way your competitors reach or serve customers that you could capitalise on? How do your potential competitors reach their customers? Who are their customers? Can you reach your customers easily? Can they afford to buy your product?
Market research at this stage will save you a fortune long-term. Define your product’s ‘Unique Selling Proposition’, the quality that sets it apart from the competition, so you understand the benefits and problem-solving attributes of your product. Be clear and base this on evidence rather than instinct or good feelings so you know that customers will want to pay for your product or service.
2. No marketing plan
A marketing plan features the strategies you will use to reach your customers to sell your product or service. Without it, your activities risk being reactive, inconsistent and probably ineffective, wasting you time and money. A good marketing plan gives you a clear indication of what you need to do to get to where you want to go. An excellent marketing plan makes it a journey you’ll want to take! Start with your ultimate objective and then work backwards, deciding what you need to do to reach (or surpass!) each target along the way.
3. No marketing goals
Without goals, you won’t know how successful (or unsuccessful) your marketing is. You need to have daily, weekly, monthly and annual goals for the number of leads, referrals, and clients your marketing will produce and to update those continually.
4. Following your competitors’ lead
Model (not copy) what has worked for your competitors in a campaign, an advertisement or marketing strategy but only if you know it has produced results. It would be unwise to follow them down an expensive path if it produced no visible, viable results!
5. Not knowing your customers
Forget trying to sell to everyone - only a tiny percentage of the population will want your product or service and you need to identify who they are. You need to find a way of appealing to the people who are most likely to buy from you. Know their needs, desires, wants, and problems so that your marketing message can appeal to them directly. The result: you’ll increase your sales, save money and time. Why do they need your product or service? What are their problems and how will your product solve them? Why would they buy from your company? What is it about your product or service that would appeal to them? How do you reach them on a consistent basis? Where can you reach them? What drives them – price, quality, prestige, etc. and does your product or service meet their criteria? This is crucial – if, for example, your product is a high-end, labour-intensive beautifully crafted product and your potential customers want lots of ‘cheap and cheerful’ easily replaceable products, you are just not going to sell enough to sustain your business.
6. Making your niche too small
It’s a mistake to make your niche too focussed unless the price of your product or service is so high that it doesn’t matter if only one or two customers buy from you a year. If your market is so small that only a handful of potential customers qualify, you need to rethink your product offering or choose two or three niches and marketing effectively to each (with different approaches – websites, newsletters, logos, etc).
7. Trying to sell to the wrong audience
Even if your product suits the needs and wants of a particular segment, it’s pointless pursuing that market if no one in it can comfortably afford to purchase your product or service, particularly if you’re hoping to create repeat business.
8. No marketing once sales kick in
Marketing is most effective when it’s done consistently. Don’t make the mistake many business owners make of abandoning marketing once it begins to bring in sales. If you can’t cope, bring in more staff to handle the sales and provide excellent customer service while you continue to focus on lead generation and conversion. Consider out-sourcing the areas of the business that focus purely on administration so that you can work on what you do best: promoting and selling your product or service but always, always be aware of what is going on in the lifeblood of your business: your accounts department!
9. Not following up on leads in a systematic way
Think of the cost of generating leads and how that will be utterly wasted unless you have a systematic process for follow-up. You must keep marketing to the people who have expressed an interest in what you sell. Remember, even if they don’t buy today, they might buy tomorrow, next month, next year or in three or more years’ time. Don’t give up on them! Remember too that while they might not buy immediately, they might refer someone who will buy from you. Don’t let that opportunity slip through your fingers – keep your product or service in their awareness by constant (and valuable) contact!
10. Ignoring existing customers to pursue new ones
Think of the expense of converting a prospect into a client and then ask yourself, why would you ignore your existing customers – people who have already demonstrated they like what you sell - in favour of chasing prospects?
It’s far cheaper to look after your existing customers and to work on retaining their loyalty and up-selling your products to them than it is to continually chase new prospects.
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