July 23, 2008
Marketing Mistakes Checklist and some Examples
Many entrepreneurs make basic marketing mistakes either because they don't know about these mistakes, or they don't have an effective system to avoid them.
This article is about the simple, basic mistakes you must avoid in order to make consistent profits with your business.
1. Failing to Master the Primary Function of Your Business
It amazes me how many businesses don't master their core business. By this I mean, if you own a grocery store in town, do you have the basic items and brand names your customer buys on a daily basis… in stock all the time?
You should, as your customers rely on you to have these items in stock when they need them. And if you don't, they'll shop somewhere else.
Now think about your business. Do you have a system in place for you business, which allows you to master the primary functions in your business so your customers are happy in their dealings with you?
You don't need to master marketing or become a business guru. Simply set up a solid system and master your core business, so your customers get what they wanted from you in the first place.
2. Not Specializing and Targeting a Specific Market
Small business owners seem to 'forget' who their customers really are and don't realize they need to specialize. Seeing they don't have a huge advertising budget, almost all small businesses need to specialize.
This allows them to compete with a small advertising budget.
Decide what you what to specialize in and decide which customers you want to go after. And then simply go after your target market every day.
3. Failing to set up a Database of Prospects and Clients
You may think this is obvious, but I still come across many entrepreneurs who are too lazy to set up a database of prospects and clients. If you have a brick and mortar business, you too can easily do it too.
Simply collect the email addresses of every prospect and customer you meet and add them to an autoresponder program such as aweber.com.
Then build a relationship with them by sending them valuable content and offers you can sell to them.
4. Not Systematically Following Up on Leads
Make sure you keep in contact with your existing prospects and customers at least twice a month. I notice many small business owners 'forgetting' this step too. If you don't keep building a relationship with your prospects and customers, they'll forget about you and buy elsewhere!
Remember they've already purchased from you and trust you. Selling additional products to them is easier than find and selling to new prospects.
5. Failing to improve the Usability and Conversion of Your Website
How many visitors on you blog or website are you converting to subscribers or customers? How easy is it for your visitors to understand what to do on your site?
To improve the usability of your website, make sure all links are blue and underlined, for example. Web visitors are used to seeing blue links.
You can also increase the size of your "Buy" or "Subscribe"buttons. It almost always increases conversions. Also make sure you eliminate all distractions which will stop your visitors from buying or subscribing on your site, especially on the order pages.
Distractions could mean links to other sites or any unnecessary things which distract your visitors from buying or subscribing on your site. This also increases conversions.
So study your websites and blogs, and make sure it's clear what your visitors must do on your site. Also investigate how you can increase the conversion rates so you can turn more visitors into buyers.
Do you have any additional marketing mistakes we should watch out for?
Responses to Marketing Mistakes Checklist and some Examples »
This one is my fav
3. Failing to set up a Database of Prospects and Clients
I can't believe how many businesses still dont collect a lead/customer database.
Those are some very good points in marketing online & off. Finding the target market is half the battle - the rest is keeping track of it all & networking many times.
Chelles last blog post..What Areas Do We Service?
Hi Riggie,
Good article. Good points. Especially the part on not following up. So much potential revenue lost, just like that. Simply by not following up.
Jag
I think you have defined the basic of a successful business, venture, and site. It is almost impossible to run a business without such measures. They all are must be implemented to turn a business into a successful venture.
Rather than having a lot of jargon on your site it is good to have very simple description and content. I have seen many landing pages which results in nothing. I like all the tips in article though.
These are some great points that should never be taken lightly or forgotten. Following up on leads is so important.
Good pointers out there. I strongly agree with point 4 especially as potential clients will be missed or forgotten. Thus I shall make it as my checklist =)
This tips are really useful for me right now because i'm currently investing with my website and this is very timely. Thanks!
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"keep in contact with your existing prospects and customer" That is the biggest mistake and most often we don't follow them. Finding and exploring a new potential is good but denying the importance of existing prospects is a blunder.
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A great "back to basics" article. Such common sense stuff but totally underutilized. Much of the problem is that as small business owners we are not able to specialize as much as we need to. We are forced to be jack's of all trades. It's not until the business is big enough that we can start to hire specialists to do some of the work.
I run a martial arts school and happen to also know web marketing. So I can handle that. But get into the other aspects and I fall down. Accounting, customer relationships, etc.
It's really the small biz challenge, getting big enough to really be able to specialize in what you do.
Nice article
Phil
Thanks for this list of marketing mistakes. It is very important for me as im in marketing business. I will look forward to these tips and try to avoid mistakes. Thanks again.
Thanks for the useful information
I like number 2, specializing is very important. You must seek the customers wants and need, and be very specific. Not only that you will grow a nice relationship with customers by doing so.
I think I have been guilty of all five of these sins and learnt the hard way on each one. I guess the benefit of this is that I have learnt from my own mistakes!
Interesting regarding the website conversion section.
I have been playing around with this for some time and it is interesting to see how the smallest of changes can make a big difference to conversions
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I think finding your own niche should be a major consideration. Great tips!!!
"2. Not Specializing and Targeting a Specific Market"
Anytime when you run a small business you must have big objectives. Once with them, you have to learn more and more things.
Those are some really good tips I see a lot of mistakes make - I don't know how they stay in business!
TRs last blog post..Is Alcoholics Anonymous Effective?
Oops…I mean mistakes businesses make, sorry if that didn't make any sense - sometimes i can't type as fast as I think
TRs last blog post..Is Alcoholics Anonymous Effective?
I agree with your observations on running a successful business. You put it well, very informative and well conceived post.
Patrick Garrys last blog post..Business Plan? All you need is Twitter.
gr8 post….explained in detail….i think maintaining cotact with customer is more important.
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I have found this post while searching google and I am glad I found it.
I think i really like the part that says specializing and targeting a specific market. A lot of people try to be a jack of all trades which never works. Its just makes all the sense to concentrate on a niche and become a master in that area.
Very good checklist, well done.
I think number 5 is the most important. It is essential to monitor your conversion rate and continue to improve.
Nicely explained, and very detailed. I've been guilty of number 5 for quite a while.
Gilliams last blog post..Cost Of Rhinoplasty
Very helpful. Thanks for the practical advice.
good! why didnt you tell me that earlier! now i lost too much
Number 2 was my biggest mistake with my 1st 2 projects…but I have that one sorted now.
very useful tips, thanks for post.
These tips can certainly help in avoiding loses and building huge profits. Excellent I would call it as. I did the third mistake but thanks god managed to come out of it quickly.
I also feel that "over keywording" goes hand in hand with not marketing to a SPECIFIC audience. Also, I tend to see a lot of companies advertising with certain keywords, but not adding those words to their pages, or summary.
I had done some foolish things in past and those were blunders. I had been working on my blogs to get them up for certain keywords with too many competition but later on I have found that they are dumb, even they searched figures are in hundreds per month. I think Adwords keyword suggesting is a cool tool which almost reveal everything we needed about keywords. Now I am working on my sites in a new way with a low competition but high accessibility.
Thanks, great site.. your is one of very few blogs worth taking the time to read..
Thanks again, Love lisa
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I really like the first one. And, it is amazing, no matter how many times you say it, it will go ignored, because it seems so simple. Another thing to add to that would be to begin with the end in mind. A business should not lose sight of where they are going, because in the long run, the long run is what matters.
Depending on what type of business you are in, the visitor to conversion ratio can be way off.
I'm in Real Estate in Myrtle Beach. As with any housing market, if I can convert 1 out of every 100 visitors into a client that purchases a home through my company, I'll be able to retire early.
Ultimately though, these were great tips.
An interesting site with a lot of useful tips and insights, keep it up!
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One thing I noticed about real estate websites, especially blogs, is that it is sometimes very hard to see where to find a home search link. People go to websites because they want to find houses! Why not let them start looking right away.
Also, blogs look so personal sometimes, that perhaps visitors don't realize that they contain serious information or conduct real business
Good article
I really love your site.. I found it so interesting and very useful. Thanks a lot.
I think it's interesting that the more specific the keywords are, the more traffic you can hope to drive to your site. What's more, is that if you actually have the content described in the keywords - your viewers will stay on the site longer.
I am so happy to stumble upon your blog.I really love these checklists.The third one is my favorite.If we cannot target a specific market,we will lost our business marketing clue at the first place.
Most appreciated article …Thanks for lovely checklist …I really appreciate ur efforts this will really help me in more conversion of lead
Thanks
this is a good guide for beginning netrepreneurs like me. Thanks really helpful!
Thanks for the useful information. Hope to see more of this post.
Just wondering, will you be posting anything similiar to this in the future? I would like to read a little bit more on this. Thanks for sharing the post though!
Yes Roger… will be posting more on marketing mistakes
and practical marketing strategies.
One of the most important things a business can do is to set clear and realistic goals for the next quarter or year. Without these, the business is wandering from opportunity to the next. From these goals, the business owner can prepare a detailed plan of action.
Setting up a database, in my opinion, is one of the most important aspects of running a business. I figured that out when i started buying leads online at $2 a piece. Those two dollar leads sometimes led to $50 product purchases. And best of all, with an email database, you can send them emails once a month without being seen as "spammy".
I've been guilty of number 5 for quite a while.
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I wish I had this list about two years ago before I started my own company. It took a lot of hard thinking to find out all these points are valuable.
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Yes, it these are some great points that should never be taken lightly or forgotten
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Hi,
I have seen your this article now. And can't stop myself to congratulate you for this very informative post.
I will frequently follow our blog post. Keep rocking. All the best from my end.
http://financeideas4u.blogspot.com
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interesting tips, I found much useful information on your blog.
Greetings
marus last blog post..Las Niñas y el Maquillaje
You bring up a very good point that I always read everywhere I read. That is to build a list or the money is in the list. This is my next step for my website but I find it hard to find some compelling and useful info via e-mail.
Hi,
I have seen your post regarding marketing mistake & i want to tell you one thing that it is just awesome.
Keep rocking. All the best from my end.
Kenneth From Finance Ideas 4us last blog post..During this recession you can go for the online money making business.
When a newcomer to promoting a web business or starting a work at home business online begins this venture what are the most common mistakes they make? This would include any business that involves internet marketing but especially the work from home income opportunity type.
Great article, I have it bookmarked for it will come in handy in the future!
very interesting, I already save the post, and I will take into account, I am new in all this, and I find this info very useful
Newcomers to their own business make the biggest mistakes by:
- Failing to do direct-response marketing (getting an immediate response via their marketing from a prospective client)
- Failing to learn and understand the basics of marketing
- Not continually being present in front of their prospects and customers with marketing campaigns
- Trying to find new customers all the time and neglecting present customers
- Failing to keep track of what marketing works and what doesn't… and doing a lot of what works!
This Article is very good. The badest thing is that small Companys allways wanna have and sell everything like the big ones do it. But when you have something special and give a good support for that then you will get customers and have a good name.
These are the most common Marketing Mistakes that we used to do in routeen life:
1. Lack of Research and Testing
2. Improper Focus and Positioning
3. Marketing without a USP
4. Failing to Capture Repeat Customers
5. Lack of Focus on Potential Customer's Needs
So Guys any idea how to avoid them
Very important steps are listed here. Most people make the mistake of wanting to "serve all". The best way to start any business is by starting off small, and working your way up. Start out very niche, add more niches, and continue to build to the theme of your business. You will make more money if you target a specific group, rather than a general group.
Also, if you sell a product, and you want to increase your conversions, focus on the landing page. If you really want to improve conversions, consider limiting navigation only to relevant links. Unless you run a huge store and you are already well known, there is no need for a "home" link, if you are trying to sell a specific product on a product page.
Riggie, No doubt, these are very common and we should learn something before start. Why you are not writing any further posts on the blog? I think you have efficient enough traffic to teach them some mew stuff.
Please write more.
I think Google can definately help with the conversion aspect, as the Analytics allows you to set up A/B testing to find out what works best for defined goals in conversions. That's what's helped me the most..
Yes, you must test your website.
I do a fair amount of website split testing. I can tell you to not forget this step. Most all websites, give their first shot at producing a sales converting website. It takes testing to find the right graphics, sales copy, price point, guarantee, etc. I found the best software is "Split Test Accelerator" to give your website a tune-up.
Hi Riggie,
I am new into this business and I admit that I'm not good in marketing. It's really great reading your article, it helps me at least not to do the same mistake like others did but I'm not sure if I am able to execute my marketing plan well. By the way, what is USP? hope to get answers from you guys.
thanks,
Kevin
web hosting, I think your #4 point is the most valid point. I think it is the most difficult task to capture all customers and to urge them to visit blogs/sites again to read or purchase some stuff.