Over the past decade the number of communications mediums and techniques have grown exponentially. To keep up with these changes businesses have greatly altered the way they market their products. Many traditional companies are even beginning to experiment with tying social media into existing campaigns.
However, not all of these new methods have been bug tested, so while your partners work on getting their communications right, their prospects end up being exposed to half-baked social media attempts and are inundated with poorly constructed communications.
The problem is that even though businesses may acknowledge “There’s something to this whole social media thing,” they’re still not sure how to marry all of their efforts together into one coherent thought process. This lack of understanding results in a lot of mistakes that your partners and sometimes your own channel professionals aren’t experienced enough to catch. To avoid these pitfalls for yourself and your partners, it is imperitive that you learn to identify (and fix) the 6 common end-to-end marketing mistakes that you or your partners might be making:
Value Proposition Isn’t Clear to Your Prospects
When your prospects visit your website, blog or LinkedIn profile they should walk away with a good idea of how your product or solution can solve their pain points. Of course, it’s going to be very difficult to communicate your value-add to your prospects if you can’t convey it consistently across all of your marketing channels.
To solve the problem of having fuzzy messaging across your channels, start by writing a page about your true value to the prospect. Next, whittle it down to a paragraph and from a paragraph to a sentence. Then try to boil your value down to one single word. Though you’ll have much more room to communicate your value to your prospect online, it’s important to communicate that one key message more acutely and with precision. Once you’ve completed this step, review your website and communication channels and determine if your messaging is consistent across all platforms. If it’s confusing to you, imagine what your prospects are thinking.
No One Can Find You Online
How do you know your prospect is finding you online and not your competition? Even if your prospect knows exactly what they are looking to buy and where to get it, they are still going to search before purchasing. If you’re not investing in a scaleable Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan that is targeted at capturing those prospects during their research phase, than you’re probably not going to get found.
When it comes to SEO, you shouldn’t be slapping a few keywords onto your website pages and hoping for the best. Your plan should be to cultivate keywords slowly and carefully through the use of online tools. There are many tools out there now which allow you to glimpse into the level of difficulty for ranking your keywords. You can even get intelligence on how often a particular keyword phrase is searched. Of these tools, I recommend the Google keyword tool (free) as well as HubSpot’s keyword grader. It isn’t free, but you can access a free 30-day trial courtesy of Channel Maven to get started with the tool.
Remember, ranking organically for keywords is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s important to build an SEO trajectory that is focused on building your SEO power the honest way, through the creation of content which focuses on building your mojo for those keywords.
Your Mailing List isn’t Regularly Groomed
If you’re not seeing the results you desire from beating the dead horse that is your mailing list, it may be time for some tough love. Your list probably contains a few gems that just need you to reach out to them and ask where they stand. If you reach out, and there’s no response yet again, it’s time to walk away. It’s okay, there will be more and better leads out there.
To judge the dead ends from the real opportunities, devise a really attractive offer for your email list. Your offer should actually be compelling such as helpful videos, e-books or an offer for a free assessment. To obtain the offer, make your prospect fill out a very simple form. First and last name, company name and email address are plenty. Avoid adding extraneous fields that make it more intrusive than need be.
The people who covert and fill out the form should become your new email list. Though it may pain you to throw out a huge list for a shorter one, you’re doing yourself a great service by identifying the prospects who are the most likely to become your future customers. It’s better to nurture those actively engaged leads than to try and convert a user who simply will never purchase your products.
Company Emails Brag, Don’t Engage
Too many companies seem to think that their company emails should read like a glorified newsreel for everything that the company has been up to in the past month. Though this might be interesting to customers you already landed, this strategy is hardly compelling to your prospects who may not already be engaged with your product as deeply.
Instead of composing emails which highlight your company’s accomplishments, try to create an email in which every piece of content is targeted at helping the prospect solve their pain points. If you spent some time nailing your messaging then you probably have a good idea what content might be appealing to your prospect. Consider creating a helpful how-to video, share an interview with an industry leader, or offer your prospect a chance to download a special e-guide which gives a bit of industry advice to the prospect.
You Rarely Use LinkedIn
LinkedIn is hands down the best social network for your business. If you’re only using LinkedIn to connect with a few coworkers and business associates, you’re missing out on the network’s true potential.
The trick to leveraging LinkedIn is making it a priority to build out your network of valuable connections so you can reach more people with your message and brand. LinkedIn is a relationship engine. You want to spend time cultivating recommendations from important people in your industry, contributing to groups where your prospects are asking questions, and sharing content with your LinkedIn network that they would find interesting. As a result, more potential clients will find you online through organic, relationship-driven interactions on LinkedIn.
Content Creation Isn’t in Your Marketing Plans
Strong content can simplify your marketing program and bring value to all of your social media efforts. By embracing a content creation strategy, you’re essentially agreeing that you will start adding regular value to your website and are making an effort to attract your prospects by creating content that fulfills a need.
Start brainstorming content that would answer a common core need of your prospect and give it away for free (once they provide information to you such as their name, email and company, of course). While it may feel odd giving away information for free, you are simply baiting the hook. What you’re giving away is the expertise that they crave and need. If your offer is value-added and addresses some of the core needs of the prospect, they’ll be more likely to turn to you for further help in the process.
While some of these mistakes can sometimes seem like trivial issues, they can actually end up being quite costly in untapped business resources. Leaving these items unchecked will put you at a great disadvantage to your competitors making the efforts. The marketing communications game has changed. Are you ready to keep up?