Are you falling into the trap of basic marketing mistakes?

We don’t like to dwell too much on mistakes. But as a digital brand marketing agency, we know that they are an important part of the growth stage of any business. Without mistakes, we can’t learn, and the best marketers are the ones who fail fast, and turn mistakes into momentum.

So let’s talk about a couple of basic marketing mistakes that businesses of all shapes and sizes, stages and industries can - and do - make on a regular basis. These can actually happen at any time which is why it’s so important to schedule time in to review your marketing strategy regularly so you can identify if you might fall into any of these traps.

Let’s begin 🙂

1. Inconsistent brand storytelling

The fundamentals of all marketing should be built around telling your brand story. It might not seem obvious but every brand you engage with will make you feel some sort of way - even if it’s nothing. The best brand marketing agencies and teams know that purchasing decisions are a reflection on what a customer feels about their brand. It could be the simple decision between two different pairs of trainers. One brand of trainers might feel more aligned with your values simply because of the personality that brand has developed over time, and the relationship that you as the customer have built with it.

To the regular Joe on the street, consistent brand storytelling might not seem important. But to us as brand marketers, it can be the difference between growth and stagnation, relevance or - gulp - redundancy! When times are tough, research shows that consumers will still purchase from brands that they feel loyal to, rather than choose a cheaper option.  It’s also important because when consumers are making purchasing decisions, brands that they are familiar with will often be the first one to spring to top of mind. So if they can’t recognise your brand easily, reaching that coveted top of mind position will be all the more difficult.

So how can we avoid inconsistent brand storytelling and make sure we are consistently reinforcing our brand story? 

The most important element here is to identify what your brand stands for. That means looking at what your brand values are, what you are setting out to achieve with it i.e. your company vision and mission statement, what it is that customers should think when they consider your brand. Once you have established this, you need to develop a set of brand guidelines that includes your logo, brand colours, tone of voice etc that accurately reflects your brand, and that you can use when developing any and all marketing assets. Even better, if you can embody these guidelines internally as a team, ensuring everyone is aligned and working towards the same goal, you may find that this has an incredibly positive impact on company culture, motivation and work ethic.

Doing this as an individual founder or small team can be challenging, so engaging the expertise of a brand consultant or brand agency to make sure you have built a long-lasting brand and accompanying guidelines is a very worthwhile investment, once you have a clear product / service defined and are ready for growth.

2. Not setting clear goals 

Following on from what your brand looks like and aligning your team around this, the next key element of being ready to create a solid marketing strategy is understanding your goals.

Marketing goals should be derived from your business objectives. So if these haven’t been clearly defined, then any of your marketing efforts are a little, um, pointless. Once you have your business goals, you can begin to build out marketing objectives that will help work towards these. Let’s think of an example. We work with a beauty salon, and the team are hard-working and ambitious. They want to open a second site, which is one of their main business goals. Marketing can play a huge part in making that happen in a number of ways - growing awareness of the salon to build excitement, anticipation and demand for a new site.

Marketing can also begin to build a new database of prospective customers, maybe focusing on the area that the new site will be in. So you can see how one main business objective can start to steer the focus for the upcoming marketing plans.

Once you have established your high level goals, you can start to break these down into smaller and more measurable objectives for your marketing plans, campaigns and channels. This will enable you to measure the effectiveness of your marketing activities which is critical for future budget, resource and campaign planning. So whenever you plan any marketing activity, think about it in relation to the high level objectives, and make sure it can measured.

3. Using too many marketing channels…or too few

The fundamentals of marketing is to communicate. More specifically, it is to communicate the right message to the right people in the right way at the right time. It’s easy to fall into the trap that this means communicating in every way you possibly can, throwing messages at people and hoping something lands. Whilst it is good practice to have a diverse marketing mix (of channels that you can use to reach your target audience), it is definitely bad practise to not consider the effectiveness of these channels. Depending on your target audience, there may be specific channels that have a far greater density and engagement of that audience than others - so focusing your efforts and investment there would be a wise consideration for your channel plan. Putting marketing communications in irrelevant places can cause them to be overlooked, or seen as ‘annoying’, which might prevent potential customers from engaging with you in the future

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Conversely, some social media managers, specialist marketers or freelancers may overstate the importance of one channel or another. There (unfortunately!) is no one magic platform can do all of the work to building your business alone. Instagram certainly has an incredibly strong offering which should not be overlooked, and with their developing ‘shop’ platform can convert 25 - 50% clicks through to sales, which is no mean feat. But when it comes to building a loyal customer base and repeat sales, there is significantly more to maintaining the relationships, especially when competitor brands with bigger ad budgets and the claim of a superior offering are cropping up daily. 

Beyond the world of digital marketing, there are many other ways to engage and connect with your audience. Identifying the right channels for this can be difficult, and working with a brand marketing agency can help you understand where your audience will get the most valuable exposure in order to make sure your resources are being maximised.

So there we have it. A few basic marketing mistakes that can be easily avoided - but also can happen to anyone at any stage. Don’t feel disheartened if you fall into any of these traps. We absolutely all have (and likely still will!) at some point and so long as you’re aware, there is always a way to rectify them. If you are struggling with any of these basic marketing mistakes, find a brand marketing agency with the expertise and niche to provide you with some support.

As we have highlighted, investing in your marketing is ultimately an investment in achieving your business goals.

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