It’s the New Year, time to get rid of those old habits and start afresh as you mean to go on. So, instead of going dry for January or hitting the gym, why not eliminate some of those nasty marketing habits for good?
Here are our worst offenders:
Marketing without metrics
80% of CEOs do not trust marketers. 91% do trust their Chief Financial Officers.
Why not give your CEO something they can grab on to in 2017? Some proper, sturdy metrics.
Today’s marketers need a firm understanding of the goals and purposes of marketing initiatives and the metrics associated with each channel. Good marketing is the ability to combine great creativity with a metrics-driven approach to demonstrate ROI.
Focusing on you, not the customer
Stop assuming that ‘marketers know best’ without talking to your potential or existing customers. Talking to customers is essential when developing messaging. It is important to keep a pulse on what customers’ want; their pain points and sweet spots to ensure your messaging hits the mark.
Spray and pray marketing
Definition is to spray money on “unaccountable” marketing and pray for results. This approach is rarely effective and is a sign of desperation and lack of knowledge about the customer segment and industry. It leads to wasted money, time and resources.
Lack of customer segmentation
The more you segment your audience the more targeted your messaging becomes. Understanding each segment and speaking directly to individuals in that segment can have a significant impact on results including increasing conversion rates, increasing revenue, creating a better customer experience and improving retention.
Lack of experimentation
Test, test, test. There is always room for improvement. Fostering a culture of experimentation and testing can lead to big wins. Try new messaging, channel test and launch and learn. You can kill the experiment if it isn’t working, if it is moderately effective you can optimise it and if it works you can scale it.
Too much selling, not enough nurturing
This is most prevalent in content and email marketing. Avoid low value content and rushing straight to the sell. Many people struggle with matching the right content to the right stage of the purchasing journey. Creating valuable content around your target customers’ interests and pain points can be an incredibly effective way to establish a relationship and gain trust. Once you’ve nurtured that relationship, you can (and should) sprinkle in content that is related to your product or service.
Not utilising expertise
There is a reason why you hired an agency. Within your agency you’ll find years of experience across a diverse range of brands. Sit down with the team and learn from other brands’ successes and failures.