Every new year ushers in a sense of hope, the chance to start afresh and correct errors made in the previous year…and this applies even in your marketing strategy. Even though we are entering the end of the 1st quarter of 2018. Regardless of the direction in which you want to your marketing, here are 6 marketing no-nos you want to avoid in order to ensure the good cheer lasts all year long:
1. Not Having the Right Team
You’re marketing strategy is only as good as the people who implement it. In the fast paced, highly competitive, ever changing landscape of today’s business world, you need top-notch talent in order to stay ahead of the pack. Ideally, your marketing team needs to be made up of analytical, agile, and curious individuals who are passionate about your target customer and have the business’s goals imprinted at the back of their minds.
Startups on a tight budget may want to skip hiring any in-house staff in the beginning and stick to outsourcing, but even then they should stick to only the best talent they can afford.
2. Neglecting to Have a Website
If you don’t have a website, you’re losing business to a competitor who does. The majority of people will take a look at your website to learn more about your business before getting in touch with you about doing business. And even in the case of retail, over 80% of consumers will do some research online before making up their minds to make a purchase. A website could also serve as a direct line of communication between your business and potential customers. In other words, a website is no longer a novel option to think about, but an absolute must for your business.
3. Failing to Implement SEO
Setting up a website for your business is only the beginning. Without the right SEO strategies to get your website noticed and ranked, your website will remain in obscurity and never generate the expected ROI. Implementing the right SEO strategies on your website and its content, will get your website favorably ranked for targeted keywords and place your business squarely before the right audience.
4. Breaking the 80/20 Rule of Content Marketing
You’re no doubt excited to tell the world about your business, but you had better resist the urge to make your content strategy all about you. The 80/20 rule of content marketing states that 80% of your content produced should be centered on your customer and provide value to them, while 20% of your content produced should be centered on promoting your business. Many businesses invert this rule and miss out the chance to engage their audience and build truly meaningful relationships.
5. Not Engaging Influencers
As consumers become more and more adept at screening ad messages from their screens and their minds in general, the use of influencer marketing has never been more important than it is now. Influencer marketing is effective for a very simple reason: people trust the opinions of those they trust more than any ad message they come across. Indeed, 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations while only 33% trust advertisements. Leveraging the right influencers in your niche is a marketing strategy that is sure to deliver more ROI than paid ads.
6. Ignoring Customer Retention Strategies
Customer retention strategies are so important because it’s easier to sell to someone you’ve already built a relationship with. The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60% to 70% while the probability of selling to a new prospect is between 5% to 20%: enough reason to make customer retention a crucial part of your marketing strategy.
Eternity would love to chat with you about your marketing strategy for 2018 and beyond. A proper website is just one small part of the marketing puzzle and we can help you fit all the pieces together!
