(And How To Fix Them)
An awesome product or service is nothing if no one knows how awesome it is. We see small business owners constantly facing the question, “My product works, but why aren’t people buying?” The solution is usually simpler than you think.
As a marketing agency, we deal with five main areas that are vital to marketing success. Here are five common marketing mistakes — and advice on how you can fix them.
Visuals
Have you ever been gifted with the sage advice: show don’t tell? It’s an elementary rule that provides a good place to start. Our brains process visuals 60,000x faster than text, which means when your audience opens up a website, their eyes are taking in a photo or video before they even get to the company name.
When visuals are the first impression of your brand, you want them to be high-quality. Start with applying visual basics like good lighting and framing your subject. The more effort you put in, the better your audience will understand the quality of your brand.
Copy
I’ll admit I have writer’s bias, but the copy is one of the most important and overlooked details when representing your business. A misplaced period, a forgotten space, an unnecessary apostrophe — all you need is one mistake to downgrade the quality of your content. Your brand loses a degree of professionalism and your content shifts the audience’s view of your company — in the wrong direction. Since you and I both know you’re no amateur, it’s worth it to take the time to get that copy just right. Professional, well-written, and accurately proofread content signals to your audience that you care about quality and invest in every little detail.
Brand Consistency
Today, your business faces everywhere. Aside from conjuring a terrifying image of endless faces, that means your website, Facebook page, and storefront signs all say something about your brand. The key is making sure they all say the same thing. By nailing down your brand and feeding it into every part of your company, you create consistency. You build confidence in your brand and give customers a reason to believe in it, too. Brands like Coca-Cola and Kleenex have paired their products with such consistent brands that they no longer have to convince customers they are reliable — the brand sells itself.
Knowing Your Audience
Would you sell dentures on Snapchat? Probably not. The demographic looking for false teeth is most likely not spending time on a hip social platform. You don’t want to market in the way you think is popular, you want to market in the way your audience thinks is popular. Take time to identify who you are trying to reach before you start creating content that will never reach them. I mean, I originally wrote this entire article in pop culture memes, but clearly, I had to rethink that.
Humanizing Your Brand
Whether you sell B2B or directly to customers, each business transaction is a human interaction. Be professional but remember that everyone and anyone you do business with has good days and bad, hopes and dreams, and probably an addiction to the same TV show you love. Approaching customers as people, rather than just numbers, will help you connect them to the business and gain their trust.
It’s easy to make these mistakes, but it can also be easy to fix them. These details will change the way you do business, and most importantly, the way your customers see your brand.
Need a little help navigating these 5 areas? We can do that.