The marketing minefield: Areas where you could be falling down

By Henry Brown

Navigating the minefield of marketing is always a tumultuous challenge for any entrepreneur. Marketing is something that we’ve all got to grasp quickly, whether it’s online or through our actions. But many new businesses can struggle with their marketing. There could be components where you think that you are doing your company a service when you are, in essence, shooting yourself in the foot! But what are the areas that every business needs to look at when something isn’t quite right?

You cover too many social channels

One of the biggest mistakes that every young business makes is thinking that they have to cover as much ground as humanly possible. Consult a marketing firm like Your Marketing People, and they would tell you that you have got to concentrate your efforts. Because we all think that we need to maintain a presence across every sort of social media channel, this isn’t the best approach. You spread yourself too thin doing this, but you also don’t do a good enough job on building your presence on the channel. Instead, streamline your focus towards two or three channels that are relevant to your market. As well as this, think about which social media channels work best in a functional sense. For example, if you use Pinterest, make this a channel to entice customers through the visuals, or you can use Twitter for customer service.

You lean too much on SEO

Sure, using SEO is vital now, but when we are looking to provide web content, the big problem that many businesses have is that they learn the rules of SEO, they oversaturate their content with these touchstones. Creating web content is about managing the expectations of your target markets. If you use too many keywords, it makes the content muddled. It’s important to remember that content is king! So give your customers something useful, and they will be grateful.

There is a lack of marketing collaboration

In any business, there are numerous components of a marketing team. One person will focus on the design aspect; someone else will focus on social media, and someone else will focus on content. This goes on and on. And when there’s so much of a demand for content, the different departments can start to focus on their area rather than collaborate. Within your business, you must create a culture of collaboration.

Even if you outsource aspects of your marketing, you have to make them feel part of the team. As well as this, remember, you’ve got to communicate your ideas consistently. When there’s a lack of collaboration in any area of the business, this is when the company can struggle. It has a detrimental impact on your marketing, but when teams don’t collaborate in any way, they inevitably focus on their own efforts, which results in a fragmented business.

Numerous marketing failures can cause us to blame external factors. But the truth in the matter is that when we are looking to promote a product or a service, the fault will always lie with us. Every growing business can fail with specific components of its marketing, and by addressing these three components, you will start to navigate the complex minefield of marketing.

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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop, he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.

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