To run a successful business, you need to get your marketing and promotion right. Unfortunately, there’s a lot that can go wrong here. If you make a mistake with marketing then it will damage your chances of building up a strong profit margin.
It could even hurt the long term potential of your company. Some marketing mistakes are easier to make than others. Let’s explore some of the most common mistakes and the greatest pitfalls that you need to avoid when you are establishing your marketing campaign.
The Biggest Marketing Blunders to Avoid
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Blackhat SEO
SEO will always be a key element of your marketing campaign. In many ways, this is the bread and butter of any promotional strategy. However, it’s important to use the right SEO tactics.
Many people misunderstand SEO and assume that it refers to a couple of marketing choices that are widely known. We are of course referring to adding links and using keywords. While this is part of search engine optimization. It’s an umbrella term that can cover a plethora of other possibilities. If you only rely on links and keywords, then you could ultimately end up with a weaker campaign that isn’t going to deliver the results that you need.
You could also end up using blackhat SEO tactics. These tactics will swiftly earn you a Google penalty. That’s going to hit your business hard and it could send your search ranking through the floor. It’s difficult to recover from this type of problem and it will take extensive work as well as more money from your marketing budget.
The best way to avoid blackhat SEO is to make sure that you are up to date with the latest tactics that are favoured by Google. This changes frequently and you can find that you’re not up to date if you leave it even one month without checking for changes.
It’s a full-time job and that’s one of the reasons why you should hire a marketing team or an SEO company. That brings us to another mistake.
Choosing The Wrong Marketing Solution
There are lots of marketing agencies around and some provide a better service than others. It’s important that you find a company that can deliver the quality solution that you need.
There are various signs that a marketing agency won’t deliver a quality service. For instance, it’s possible that a marketing agency can provide you with a quote without knowing anything about your brand. This should never be the case.
For services like web design, businesses should always have a solid understanding of the current situation regarding your website. If they don’t, then how will they know how much work is needed, what strategy is required and how many hours it’s going to take.
If they can quote a price without any information on your site, they are probably offering a cookie-cutter solution where everyone is delivered the same strategy. This could also mean that they’ll be using some black hat tactics too.
When you are exploring different marketing agencies make sure that you do ask as many questions as you can. For instance, it’s important to know who is going to be handling the campaign and whether this will change or remain constant. You should also think about how long it takes the company to reply to your inquiry.
Long replies suggest a lower level of service and perhaps that the company in question is overwhelmed. You need a business that will keep you updated regularly and be able to respond to your questions rapidly. It’s that simple.
Too Promotional With Content
When it comes to your marketing campaign and strategy for your business, content marketing is always going to be a key element. Without the right content, you are going to struggle to engage your clients. However, as with everything there are mistakes to avoid when marketing with content.
For instance, you need to ensure that your content isn’t too promotional. The temptation here will be to use content to directly promote your business. That’s always going to be a mistake. Instead, you should be following the 80:20 rule with your content.
Essentially, this dictates that only 20% of the content should be purely promotion. That’s true for any content that you choose to share through social media. Essentially, you need to build up your social media profile as a resource that is valuable and useful to your followers.
To do this, you need to understand how to create compelling content that connects with users. We recommend that you think about telling a story with content. Start with a problem that consumers are facing and then work in your business as the solution with a certain level of subtlety.
‘How to’ posts are particularly useful for business owners. These can also allow you to lead your users and visitors to your website to make a purchase decision. The best content is always going to lead to a high level of conversions without actually feeling like marketing at all.
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Taking Shortcuts
Finally, as tempting as it might be, you need to make sure that you are not taking any shortcuts when marketing your business. There are actually quite a few shortcuts and those who offer these will suggest that they can lead to massive gains for your business in a short period. We guarantee this won’t be the case and the best way to understand that is with an example.
Buying followers for social media is a shortcut that you can consider but it won’t lead to the results that you want. For your followers to be useful on social media, they must engage with your brand.
Followers that are purchased will never do this and eventually, you’ll be seen as a fraud.
We hope this helps you understand the key mistakes that you can make when marketing your business. If you ensure that you avoid these problems, then your business profile will always be far stronger in the long term.
You’ll be able to gain interest from customers that you need.
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