Are you looking to enhance your marketing game?

Whether you've just invested in your first startup or you're a savvy business leader, having a foolproof marketing plan is essential. After all, the right marketing plan is going to introduce you to the best customers, enhance your brand recognition and better prepare your business for success.

If you're looking to craft the best marketing plan possible, you're going to want to read this. We're shining a light on the seven most common marketing mistakes to avoid.

Go on, it's finally time to take your marketing seriously!  

1. Failing to Understand Your Customers

Gaining a solid understanding of who your customers are is arguably the most important aspect of creating a marketing plan. So, before you begin crafting your marketing plan, it's time to get to know who your customers are.

What are their wants and needs? What ethics are important to them? What are their problems that need to be solved?

In better understanding your customers, you can equip yourself with a more particular and accordingly effective marketing plan.

2. Failing to Compile Market Research

When it comes to your marketing plan, it might be tempting to skip out on your research.

After all, you might think that you have a solid understanding of both the market and your product. As it turns out, failing to compile market research is one of the most common marketing mistakes for new businesses.

To avoid falling into such a trap, do your due diligence and study the market. In doing so, you will gain an understanding of how your product or service will perform before even launching your marketing campaign.

Many companies will develop a number of different products or services before an official launch. In doing so, they will test the market with these products and study how the public reacts to each product.

3. Establishing Too Small a Budget

For new companies, determining your correct marketing budget can be confusing.

As a result, most new companies invest too little money into their marketing plan. When a startup business has little money to begin with, the thought of investing their money into marketing can feel intimidating.

As a general rule, companies that have been in operation for one to five years should be investing twelve to twenty percent of their projected revenue on marketing. It's best to prepare for such an expense from the very beginning. This is going to help develop brand recognition and help secure you a spot in the market share.

4. Determining Too Broad of Targeting

So, who exactly is your target demographic?

One of the most common mistakes that businesses make in their marketing efforts is establishing too general a target demographic. When this happens, it's nearly impossible for an advertisement campaign to be effective and provide satisfactory results.

For example, an apparel business might determine that they want to appeal specifically to men. However, they're failing to take into account the age, buying power or the geographical location of these men.

In turn, their marketing efforts are far too broad and the results are largely ineffective.

5. Failing to Acquire the Necessary Tools

What tools does your business have to meet your marketing needs?

Let's be honest, marketing has never been more complex or intricate than it is today. As technology continues to grow and transform, online marketing becomes more high-level.  

This is why staying current and equipping yourself with all of the necessary online tools is so important. You can rest assured that if you're not using all of the most updated tools and software, your competition is. It's easy to see how much of an upper hand your competition will have with all of the best tools.

To ensure that you're helping yourself as much as possible, ensure that you have all of the necessary marketing tools. This could be anything from a quality CRM and an SEO pack to analytics software and social media managers.

6. Ignoring Past Customers

Many businesses today focus on attracting new customers. But, did you know that 65 percent of a company's business comes from existing customers?

While there's no denying the importance of gaining new customers, this often means that both past and current customers are left behind. When these customers are unaccounted for, they slowly begin to fade into the background. From a long-term perspective, it's unlikely these customers are going to be sticking around.

This is why directing your marketing efforts toward past and current clients is so important. This keeps the customer engaged with your business and showcases just how important their business is to you.

7. Not Tracking Your Performances

At the end of the day, there's arguably very little point in investing your money into marketing if you're unwilling to track your performance.

How is your current marketing campaign comparing to your last? Are you having more success with Facebook advertisements or with Instagram advertisements? Do your advertisement perform better with a single-image graphic or a video?

Understanding these questions is crucial to gaining insight as to which marketing efforts are most worthwhile. This is going to ensure that the money being spent on marketing isn't simply going down the drain.

Avoiding the Most Common Marketing Mistakes

Is your marketing plan generating the right response from your consumers?

If you're new to marketing, it's easy to get overwhelmed when crafting a marketing campaign. Fortunately, there are steps that any business can take to ensure that their marketing plan is the best that it can be.

From not tracking your performances to ignoring past customers, these marketing mistakes are common. Now it's time to take your marketing seriously and do your best to avoid these common marketing mistakes!

Could your company use a helping hand in the marketing department? If so, contact us today to learn more about how we can help you.

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