Common Marketing Mistakes

Is this you?

You know what I’ve found to be common among my clients? They all want people to attend, watch or participate in the things they do.

Sounds normal, doesn’t it?

Well, it occurred to me while working with the local Chamber of Commerce that having that goal is not right. There’s something wrong with it and it took me a while to figure it out. You see, the Chamber is doing seminars and picnics and golf outings . . . . and they can’t figure out why the only people who come are the same core group.

And so they try better newsletters and e-mail marketing and “bring a buddy” campaigns. All to no avail.

But the one thing none of them do is surveys. In person, on the phone, at registration time, by e-mail, on the website, in the newsletter – it doesn’t matter. (more…)

Recently the folks at Klout asked me some questions about doing business online. Thought I’d turn it into a blog post. . . because that’s what I preach. :)

Klout: What common marketing mistakes should one avoid when forming an Internet marketing strategy? Why?

Focusing on “Likes” “pins” “retweets” “+1’s” – – – – should not be the goal. Revenue should always be the goal. If “likes” “pins” and the rest are part of the strategy to achieve revenue growth, then by all means employ these tactics. But don’t make “likes” the goal or that’s what you’ll get. (more…)

I was over at Kyle Nelson’s blog reading about bounce rate today.

I agreed with his clinical definition of bounce rate. But our opinions diverged there.

I don’t agree that a high bounce rate is something that needs to be fixed. That’s painting with a broad brush and contributes to the myth of “bounce rate” that plagues so many. Let me start by saying:

• A high bounce rate by itself does not indicate anything.
• A high bounce rate does not signal website problems
• A high bounce rate should make you think, not take action.
• A high bounce rate just may be an indicator of great profitability (more…)

I got asked today if I'd made any mistakes in building my  FreeWeeklyMastermind community. The answer to that is yes.  Darren and I have definitely made mistakes.  I wouldn't even…

How many times have you gotten an idea and thought you should take what knowledge you've gained and start another site? If you're like me and you continually renew domain…

It’s possible to make money the wrong way. You would think that money that goes from my wallet to your wallet would be a good thing. But sometimes you need to make the tough decision to cut bait and start over.

Let me give you an example. The TV infomercial world isn’t easy. You spend oodles of money building a product, fashioning the brand, creating a show and paying money to get on TV. And that’s long before you make $1 from those efforts. When you finally get to the point that you’re spending money on advertising, the pressure is on. The show has got to work or you lose thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) before you can retool.

That pressure affects decisions. For instance a couple tweaks there and a couple tweaks here could mean the difference between a profitable show and bankruptcy. With money on the line, any evidence that revenue is increasing is met with cheers. Since shows are taped with on-air talent, tweaking a show is difficult to say the least so changing the offer is often the first test. The good news is once a show works and sales pay for the marketing, you can effectively market forever.

That’s when the mistake can happen. That’s when you can start making money the wrong way. (more…)

I went and saw a movie this weekend and was excited to see a Mayonnaise commercial featured before the previews even started.  Let me re-word that. . . I was excited to see what the Mayonnaise folks were doing in a commercial before the movie started. I can’t say I cared one way or the other that the commercial was about mayonnaise.

So just as the commercial started an icon floated into the bottom right corner of the screen that said “Shazam for Free Sample” I looked at it for a second and realized that the commercial wanted me to use the Shazam app at which time I would redirected to a webpage where I could order myself a free sample of mayo. (more…)

No one wants to make a pricing mistake. Small business owners often have to order pricing labels so getting it right the first time seems crucial. Lately I’ve gotten some questions about how to price things, both products and services.

Fortunately, yes I say fortunately, there are no rules. That holds true especially if you provide a unique service or one that requires a great deal of expertise. However, if you’re offering the same service or product someone else is then you’ve got something concrete to look at. (more…)

Make sure everything you do results in actionable information. One of the big survey marketing mistakes is asking questions no cares to know the answer.

Honestly, I would love to stop that here. That alone is all you need to keep in mind moving forward. But a picture with color is so much easier to imagine. Here are a few examples of actionable information that should clarify this discussion.

The Survey Question

You’ve surely taken surveys that ask your age, income and marital status – have you not? I have too, several times and I’m eager to give that information. But I wonder, and I hope you do too, what are they doing with that information?

When you ask survey questions to your audience, role play the answers that might get returned. Suppose 65% said they were male and 35% female? What would you do? Suppose it was 50/50 or the reverse, would that change your marketing in any way?

One of the biggest survey marketing mistakes is failing to understand the value of the information. (more…)