5 Marketing Mistakes and How You can Learn from Them

We love other people’s marketing mistakes. Why? Because we can learn from them. Recently, Direct Marketing News shared the mistakes of 13 direct marketers and how they fixed them. We want to share five of those “lessons learned” with you.

Misunderstanding your audience

It’s easy to think you know who your audience is. It’s common sense. It’s who you have always marketed to and who you have in mind when creating campaigns. Many marketers fail to truly identify with their audience and end up marketing themselves into a corner. Ouch! The lesson is simple. Continually question your assumptions about your audience and how to stay relevant. Use A/B testing, just because your ad did the best last year does not mean it will perform the best this year. Try new things, literally everything you could think of was made created or drafted because someone dared to try something new. Bring new people into the process, the Declaration of Independence was not created and signed by one man, it took may unique and great individuals to make that great change. Never rest on past success, this is simple, but remember all of the banks and businesses that were “TO BIG TOO FAIL”! Never rest on your laurels when there is work to be done.

Sending multiple “personalized” communications to the same person

Personalized communications are a powerful tool when used sparingly and handled properly, but if you do what one marketer did—send five personalized communications to the same person in the same week. Over burdening your recipient is a sure fire way to deteriorate what value your email communications have fast. It is also a great deal important to remove duplicate contacts from your marketing database. TO further avoid over-communications set up a system for removing people from multiple different emails in a short period of time.

Neglecting customer retention in favor of lead gen

Lead generation is a critical component of your marketing strategy, but your best customers are often your existing ones. Invest in retaining and growing your existing customer base.We have all heard of the statistic that is is much easier to keep a customer than to attain a new customer. You’ll not want to overlook your most profitable market. To ensure you keep your clients and customers treat your marketing like an investment portfolio—diversification is the key to any successful business.

Getting your audience’s motivation wrong

One marketer tried to increase fundraising by creating a “World Cup” competition to motivate donors to compete against one another. The project was a total failure. The reason? In the nonprofit world, donors give, not out of competition, but out of desire to make the world a better place. The marketer relaunched the campaign, after having removed the competitive element and making it more of a collaborative process for the greater good. Success! Understand your audience motivations before you launch any campaign.

Thinking customers will become brand advocates simply because they like your product

Customers don’t turn into brand advocates all by themselves. If they love your products, they will become brand advocates, but you have to nurture that relationship well beyond the sale. Develop ways to actively engage with customers on a variety of platforms, from newsletters to social media, from email to review sites, and even to in-person at events, if relevant. Investing in ongoing relationships will reap benefits long term.

Learn from your marketing mistakes

Not only are you guilty of at least 1 of these mistakes, you are probably guilty of more than three of the marketing mistakes mentioned in the article. But that is not something to worry about. If you learn from your mistakes and come out stronger you could argue that they were not mistakes at all. Either way live everyday to learn and learn everyday and you will become better then you ever thought possible.

You can download the full One to One Marketing Tip #22 PDF HERE.

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