Marketing your business can be tough because it’s always changing. This constant change makes it challenging to stay on top of marketing, especially when you have so many other hats to wear in your business.
Your marketing strategy certainly plays a massive role in the success of your marketing. However, if you want to save time and money with your marketing efforts, learning from others’ mistakes is crucial, too.
I’m going to highlight five of the most common marketing mistakes I see businesses make every day. Ignore these at your own risk.
1. You Aren’t Talking About the Problems You Solve for Your Clients
When you identify your customers’ problems, it deepens their interest in you. The problem is the hook that draws people into what you have to offer. The more you talk about problems, the more interest clients will have.
Keep in mind, the only two reasons people make buying decisions is to gain pleasure or avoid pain, and pain avoidance is a greater motivator than gain. For example, as a system integrator, one of the problems you might solve is “making technology easy to use so people can enjoy it.”
Don’t you think messaging such as this would immediately be attractive for someone experiencing this problem?
2. You Are Using Too Much Marketing Copy
I recently read that the attention span of humans continues to decrease. It currently sits at eight seconds, which is less than a goldfish! We have become a society of instant gratification, low patience, and a desire to have immediate information.
Most people will not spend the time to read through paragraphs of marketing copy. They want to easily peruse what you have to say so they can quickly find out if you can help them. Your marketing copy and messaging must be short, succinct, and easy to understand, or you will lose people.
Also by Tim Fitzpatrick: How to Use Storytelling in Your Marketing
3. Your Offer Isn’t Clear
Your business can only be known for one thing in the marketplace — otherwise, you are going to confuse people. Being known for one thing doesn’t mean you can’t sell many different products and services; it means you need to define the one thing you want your business to be known for and communicate that to your market. Walmart is the low-price leader. Nordstrom is known for fantastic customer service. Pick your one thing and communicate it consistently.
4. You Aren’t Giving Customers a Clear Path to Follow
As human beings, we are wired to take paths. You need to provide a clear path for clients that describes the steps they will take to do business with you. For example, if you sell home theater systems, you might say, “Our Three-Step Process to Fun and Entertainment.”
- Step 1: Get a Free Consultation
- Step 2: We’ll Design and Install a System to Meet Your Needs and Budget
- Step 3: Enjoy Movies Like Never Before
By providing a path or a plan for people to follow, you are creating clarity and making it easy for them to understand what to expect as they engage with your company.
Clients don’t need to know about all the behind-the-scenes steps you take. They only need to know about the high-level steps to get where they want to go.
Also by Tim Fitzpatrick: 5 Reasons You Need to Get More Online Reviews
5. You Talk Too Much About Yourself
We’ve all heard the acronym WIIFM — What’s In It For Me? It’s tough to hear, but customers don’t care about you! They care about themselves and what you can do for them.
When you talk too much about your company, you are positioning your company as the hero in the story. Big mistake! Your customers aren’t looking for another hero. They are looking for a guide who can help them solve their problems. You can accomplish this by focusing your message on your customers and only talk about yourself to establish credibility and trust.
Now that you’re aware of these five marketing mistakes, I’d encourage you to check out your website and the websites of your competitors. I bet you’ll see many, if not all, of these mistakes are present.
Do you know what that means? Opportunity for you to differentiate your business from everyone else and engage new clients like never before.
Want more stories like this delivered to your inbox every day? Then sign up for the free Residential Systems eNewsletter here.
