5 marketing tactics to AVOID!

Let’s have a look at 5 basic marketing tactics that you need to avoid in an effort to improve your marketing results:

1)     Not having a detailed digital marketing strategy

A digital marketing strategy is essentially a plan that outlines how your business will achieve your goals through the use of online or digital channels like websites, social media etc. This covers all digital, content and marketing aspects that you wish to consider in the hopes of achieving your set marketing goals.

A digital marketing strategy is vital and provides you with a plan to communicate your brand with your ideal customers. Without it there is no guarantee that your plans to improve your digital presence and visibility you won’t have any idea whether all of the time and effort that you’ve put into it  Your strategy should include the following:

-        Defining who your target audience is.

-        Determine what the marketing goals for your business, ie. What do you want to achieve?

-        How will you achieve these marketing goals?

-        How will you measure whether your goals have been achieved and if your plans to address them were successful?

2)     Not defining your target audience

As a business you can’t just market to as many people as you can and hope for the best. It is very important to focus your marketing on a specific target audience as this will allow you to achieve the highest possible qualified leads for your products or services. Having a good understanding of your ideal customers guarantees that you can better cater for the needs of your customers and that set market by producing the best possible products and content for them.

 The most important part concerning defining who your target audience is, is to do your research. You cannot guess who your ideal customers may be. The problem with guessing is that sometimes there is a big difference between what group you hope is your customers and which groups are actually buying them - this will prevent you from targeting the correct audience and thus waste time and money by not achieving the best results possible for your company. There are many companies and platforms that are able to assist you with determining what demographic may be best suited to your company.

3)     Not using social proof

Social proof or informational social influence refers to the idea that people copy the actions of others in an attempt to duplicate behaviour in certain situations. In terms of marketing, social proof refers to the idea that customers consider reviews, testimonials, recommendations, blogs, Facebook groups and many more sources, before making a purchasing decision. 

 These channels are all essentially a digital version of “word-of-mouth” which is why online businesses encourage the completion of reviews on their websites and this works as a stamp of approval from other customers. Customers always need reassurance when they’re spending their hard earned money.

4)     Not giving your audience a chance to breathe

As a business, there is a fine line between pushing out a ton of content and making your followers tired of your business, and posting so little content that your business essentially becomes invisible. That fine line or balance can be achieved with time, practice and by having a complete understanding of who your target audience is. If you know who your customers are then you will know on what platforms they are most active and that should give you an indication (with the help of some research) what the typical number of posts are per day or week.

LinkedIn is a great example of that balance because due to the saturation of its constant inflow of real-time tweets it is important to post anywhere between 2 and 4 times a day in order to stay visible. Where email on the other hand, is the complete opposite. You won’t be too happy with receiving 4 sponsored emails in one day from one of your favourite clothing stores so neither would your customers. Monitoring the number of posts published for each platform seems quite silly but that could be the reason why your followers, subscribers or sales don’t improve.

5)     Not participating in trends

Trends change almost daily thanks to platforms like TikTok and Instagram which makes it hard to keep up. But as a business, it is very important to know what people (and more specifically your customers) are talking about, what apps or websites they’re using, etc because this allows you to determine where your business should be promoted and gives you a better insight into the interests of your customers.

Your business does not need to participate in every song or dance or trend that pops up on social media platforms but by participating you will be able to make your business visible to new markets.

Being able to successfully market your business is a total game-changer and will allow your business to achieve its goals in sales, traffic, visibility and just about everything in between. It can seem very daunting when you are unsure of where to start and how to go about it,  which is why there are marketers - to alleviate your stress and make sure you get the best possible results. Get in contact with Marketing Eye today, to find out how we can help you and take your business to the next level!

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