Not tracking the number of leads generated by each marketing campaign.
Tracking the number of leads generated by your different marketing campaigns allows you to place your money where it is most valuable – the campaigns that deliver the best results and eliminate those areas of advertising that don’t generate results. Most of the clients we have worked with, regardless of the size of their business, do not track the success generated by marketing efforts. If they do tracking, it’s usually via asking a customer verbally how they found out about their company. There are several problems with this approach:
- One marketing method may drive users to another marketing effort (for example, an Angie’s List ad that has a web url). Which one should get the credit? If the Angie’s List ad was where they originally found out about the company, should that ad get the credit? But the client didn’t contact the company until it saw the company’s website, so did the website close the deal?
- Are the customers being honest? You’re asking them something that is probably pretty low on their priority of items to remember so are they offering accurate data?
- Your employees (or you) must remember to ask the client the question every time. Since we are all human and busy, it’s almost guaranteed that the question is forgotten a good part of the time. Your data then becomes invalid.
Not tracking revenue generated by each marketing campaign.
While it is important to track the number of leads generated by your different marketing campaigns, it is equally important to track the revenue generated by each campaign. Closing the loop on conversions of leads to sales will help you better determine where to spend your marketing dollars. Your cost per lead may be higher in a particular channel, but if it has a higher conversion ratio, it may well be worth continuing to pay the higher cost for more qualified leads.
Running one-time ads/not giving a campaign enough time.
I’ve encountered this repeatedly in my time working in this field. A client will take out a one-time (or even 3 time) ad in some form of print, TV or radio advertising. They may as well have just thrown their money out on the street. That might at least have attracted some attention. Studies have shown that people need to encounter your company 7 times before they will remember it and then act toward purchasing. Marketing campaigns take time to gain traction (see above). Too many business owners expect results before they should. This is especially true in areas such as print marketing or organic search engine marketing, which may take 6 – 12 months to be viable.
Inconsistent or lack of branding and messaging across campaigns
All too often, in an effort to save money, a small business will ask whoever is placing an ad to design it without thinking about how it plays into the larger brand message. An inconsistent brand isn’t a brand. Take the time to define what your brand is and the message you want to convey and make sure all your marketing reinforces that message.
Not trusting the professionals
It’s always interesting to me to find that someone has hired our company to do a job for them (i.e. help their company succeed in their marketing efforts) and then proceeds to tell us how to do it. If they already knew how to do this successfully, why would they need to hire us? Ignoring the recommendation of the expert who you hired to tell you what you are doing wrong is ridiculous and frustrating for both the small business owner and the person they have hired. I think many times, small business owners hire someone because they want them to reaffirm what they’ve already done. When what they’ve done isn’t working, they often become defensive when the shortcomings in their current strategy come to light. If you’ve hired a marketing person to help you, please listen to the expert. Chances are they’ve seen it already in a number of other companies and have helped them overcome those same problems.
Only marketing outside your circle of influence.
The cost to market to folks who have already done business with you is much lower as they have already come to trust your business and will take less time (and therefore less money) to convert to another sale.
Only marketing within your circle of influence.
Marketing to folks who have already purchased from you is a great tactic and you know that they are already qualified. But if you aren’t trying to reach outside your current clientele, you’re probably headed for disaster. You may not need a lot, but it’s important that you have a steady influx of new customers. Inevitably, some of your customers are going to no longer do business with you over time. Make sure you have more than enough new customers to cover the cost of loss of your existing customers.
Doing what you’ve always done
Too often we encounter clients who simply repeat what they have always done in the past for marketing. Technology and marketing are constantly changing. Make sure you are keeping up. Recently, Google notified web masters that they will start punishing websites in search results that aren’t mobile optimized. Social media has changed the dynamic of how companies market as organizations engage in two-way conversation rather than simply trumpeting their goods and services to the masses.
Simplexity Marketing Group is a full service digital advertising company with specialists in development, design, online marketing and social media. If you are interested in learning more about how Simplexity Marketing Group can help grow your business, give us a call! We’d be more than willing to talk about your current strategy and how to improve upon what you already have.
