The do’s and the dont’s. That is what everyone is taught in class, every basic knowledge written in a book; yet, it some of us, even, most of us seem to always accidentally get involved in the dont’s.
When it comes to marketing, there are so many different versions of marketing. Everyone has their own way of doing it. Everyone has their sure-fire ways and sometimes you need a mixture of all of them to make sure it would work for your company.
That’s okay though, we all learn from it. However to help you out, here are the 5 biggest rookie mistakes people tend to make, and a couple of solutions.
Having too many ideas, without a proper execution
The first thing to remember is the purpose of your marketing content. It is easy to come up with a number of creative ideas. The hard part is to connect all the ideas together and lead them to one purpose.
A good marketing strategy is a combination of a number of things: creative ideas , a clear mission and an ROI. No matter how many activities and plan you come up with, the end goal should be precise – to entice audiences to your brand.
How to fix this?
Figure out your S.M.A.R.T goal. This is the basic thing every marketer is taught, and it saves you time and money.
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Assignable
R – Realistic
T – Timely
A smart goal sounds like this, “Increase number of membership across Malaysia by 35% in 3 months time.”
Once you have this goal, create ideas on how to achieve it. Example, “Run a soccer camp across Malaysia to promote our Junior Soccer Club.”
The process goes as such. To ensure proper execution, keep a sheet on all your activities, how it is going to be run, how much it will cost, and who is responsible.
Having too broad of a target audience, or not focusing on one
A one-size-fits-all marketing campaign is easy, and would cost you less money. It is also less effective. Sure, a quirky designer purse would suit all women, but when you target a wide audience, you fail to attend to the needs of your target market – the audience that would actually buy your product.
How to fix it?
Firstly, identify your brand’s main target market. Not only that, study them. Marketing’s purpose is to bring revenue to a company therefore, focusing on the audience that your brand would appeal to saves you more time and money and gives you a higher ROI.
Secondly, identify the most suitable marketing medium. If you are targeting young girls who are technology savvy, you would want to promote your ideas on social media, and you have no need to waste money on TV ads. However if you are targeting older women between the age of 35 to 45, you might still be needing TV ads.
Third, send a focus message. Use languages that appeal to your target audience. Using terms like “Lit” or “On-Fleek” for example would be understandable to young modern girls but a more proper language would be needed if your target market are older women.
Asking your user to do too many things
Let’s face it, everyone is already busy with their life. Attention spans are short and people tend to want to participate if it doesn’t cost anything. Take more than 5 minutes of their time, they probably will ignore you.
How to fix it?
Never ask your audience to do more than 2 things. If you ask them to like and comment, you would probably get them to do both. However add a third option, they would not do any.
Think as a user. If someone approaches you at a mall while you are on a time limit and asks for you to fill up a survey while they explain their product, would you stop?
What if someone approaches you at a mall with a free pen and only asks for your contact card in return, would you stop?
If you are designing a website or running an ad, pick your most important Call of Action, and stick to that.
Posting good content once, and forgetting about it
So you are running your marketing on social media. You come up with a good content, you post it, and voila! You expect results and you forget about it. Wrong.
The problem with social media is users only see what is posted at the time of their use. So if you post an article in the morning, chances are, by lunch time, your audience won’t see it.
How to fix it?
Post and re-post. There is nothing wrong with it. Do not spam your audience. Pick a time and have enough gaps in between before you re-post your content.
A good way to do it is by identifying when your target audience goes online most. For example, at 7am when they commute to work, 12pm when they go for lunch, 5pm when they get home from work etc.
Marketing campaigns are always different and the more different the approaches you take, the more outcomes you will come across. Let your creativity run wild but always make sure that you also have processes in place to allow for you to collect results. If not you will just be spending money on nothing.
If you ever need someone to help you out with your marketing strategy, ThunderQuote can help you find the right people for your job!
ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.