Top 6 Marketing Mistakes Entrepreneurs Should Know and Avoid

Every business owner makes mistakes, including marketers. While intelligent entrepreneurs quickly learn from their mistakes and move on, others do nothing except having regrets. Expensive marketing mistakes can let your brand go down in history as the biggest failure of the century. On the other hand, an effective marketing campaign can take your brand closer to your target consumers, setting your company up for prosperity. Here are the top 6 marketing mistakes entrepreneurs should know and avoid.

1. Ignoring your existing clients

Assuming you invest so much of your company's resources in advertisements targeting new customers, it can be tempting for you to ignore your current customers. Attracting new prospects is good, but you may want to ensure that you don't do that at the expense of your existing clientele. Forgetting your current clients is one of the most regrettable marketing strategies you should strive to avoid. 

Small business owners often think that focusing on building new customer bases is all that counts, not knowing that they can also target their current clients. The majority of top companies make their revenue from their existing customers. So, keep in touch with your current customers even as you try to capture new ones.

2. Not leveraging social media 

Whether you like them or resent them, social media channels are must-have tools for many marketers. Social media marketing is relatively inexpensive, yet it's effective at targeting consumers. That said, it's not enough to create social media pages and post little content. The world of social media is more extensive than you can imagine, and to make the most out of these platforms, you’ll need to go the extra mile to connect with social media influencers.

When you partner with experienced social media influencers such as unrulyagency.com, you can boost your brand awareness and generate leads. Entrepreneurs who lack a well-defined social media strategy end up shooting themselves in the foot, despite having accounts on all the social networks. Respect the integrity of your followers and avoid spamming them with irrelevant posts.

3. Using no CTA (call-to-action)

When your prospects see your ads or visit your business website, that's an opportunity for you to ask them to do one thing or another. This could be about calling them to sign up for a promo, subscribe to your newsletter, or check out some products. Not including a CTA in your marketing campaigns means that you’re harming your conversion rate, as your visitors won’t know exactly what you want them to do next. Adding CTA buttons on your website doesn't have to be a difficult task. The fear is that if you don't encourage your potential customers to explore your services, you’ll likely pass over opportunities repeatedly. 

4. Poor research and testing

Ignoring in-depth research or not running tests, also constitute unfortunate marketing mistakes. These are not time-wasting activities; they can save you money and time instead. Adequate research studies will allow you to accurately predict how your products and promos will perform when launched. Testing will give you a snapshot of how the public will respond to your campaign. This way, you’ll know the red flags and fish out unpopular ideas. It takes relentless efforts to understand your target audience in great detail.

5. Bad focus and positioning

How you position your brand ultimately determines its reputation and customer size. To stand out in your industry, you’ll need to position your brand strategically. Create momentum such that every time you launch a new product or service, it's an improvement on a previous one. Some marketers get it wrong by marketing single products, with consideration for how people perceive their overall brand. Adopt brand positioning strategies to influence how consumers compare and contrast your company with its competitors. Each product or service should correlate with your focus and branding, such that you build a thriving niche market.

6. Lacking a unique selling point

Your unique selling point or USP is a critically thought statement that distinguishes your business from others. You need to tell your audience why your products are unique and beneficial to them over your competitors'. Ask vital questions such as: what problems do your products solve that no other brand does? Do you use sustainable materials? What specific lifestyle are you selling? It's up to you to impress customers with your marketing strategies or lose the race to the top. Your unique selling point should be the foundation of your marketing steps.