What with budgets being restricted and cash flow being tight in the current climate, its more important than ever that every penny you spend on marketing is impactful and delivers value.
Experienced marketeers will have a good idea of what works and what doesn’t, but if you fall outside of that category maybe you’ve fallen foul of some common marketing myths yourself. It’s all part of the journey of course and in truth, it’s these lessons that often are the most valuable.
Below we’ve summarised some of the most common marketing myths we hear and scrutinised their validity when marketing your business:
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity”
This is one we’d certainly beg to differ on. In a world where your business’s reputation is so important, why would anything that may tarnish that be considered good publicity? After all, it may have taken years to build the good reputation your business currently has and it can take as little as 24 hours to undo it. How your business is viewed and perceived by your customers should be at the forefront of everything we do. So much work goes into building strong and healthy relationships with your customer base; identifying their wants and needs and providing the best possible experience for them. In our opinion this is paramount and informs almost every business decision you make, so it’s an obvious one, but to try avoid anything that may stain the public perception of your business. The internet can be an unforgiving place and bad PR stays long in the memory of Google searches.
“Everyone is a potential customer”
Another one we’d file firmly in the myth category. Even the best products on the market don’t work for everyone, so it’s important to profile your target audience and really try to understand what speaks to them. If you’re marketing approach is too broad brush or generally targeted, you’re probably missing the mark. Try to create an ideal customer profile to better understand what works for them, what motivates or drives them and crucially, the best way to reach them. In a world where attention spans are decreasing It’s important that your marketing approach impacts your customer in a way others don’t, or at least cuts through the noise other companies vying for their attention are making. A ‘one size fits all’ approach just won’t won’t cut it if you’re trying to speak to a niche or specific target market.
“Marketing is expensive”
Yes, it can be is the honest answer to this one. But it doesn’t have to be. If you’re looking to advertise at London’s Piccadilly Circus, when TDK’s contract ran out in 2014 the space they occupied was touted for an eye-watering £4 million per year. Most businesses however won’t be looking to rent billboard spaces in Central London. Your own website is your online shop window and enables you to speak to your customers directly and really make that connection with the content you post and the picture you build of your business. Spending a little time to really understand your customers and what their behaviours are often pays dividends. It’s important to remember bigger isn’t always better and as the old saying goes, there’s more than one way to re-home a cat (we’re big advocates for animal rights, so we prefer to use this phrase) 🙂 Did we mention Direct Mail delivers one of the best returns on your marketing investment?
“A website is enough of an online presence”
Your website is crucial to your business. It’s your online shop window and showcases everything you do, from products and services to giving the visitor an insight into the culture, ethics and business values you promote. But your online presence shouldn’t stop there. At the last count there were 2 billion active social media users globally, and the chances are a sizeable portion of your target audience fall into that. Using your targeted customer profiles you can ascertain the best place to find them, be that twitter, instagram, youtube, facebook, Tik Tok or one of the plethora of social media platforms now available. It all helps to curate them through the online journey and lead them to your showpiece, the company website. Whatever their social media preference, it’s important to be where your customers are.
“If it works for one it works for all”
We’ve all cast our eyes towards our competitors to see what they’re doing and what is or isn’t working for them. Competitor analysis is an important part of your business strategy but it shouldn’t inform your marketing plan. It’s likely that by proxy of being in the same sector they will be targeting the same customers but that doesn’t mean they have a blueprint for marketing success. Your marketing should be specific to you, whatever that looks like. Do you have a USP or core values that are unique to your business? Then tell people about them. It’s far more important to understand your customer base and the mediums or platforms they engage with than looking towards competitors. Have a clear, well informed plan and market in the places your customers frequent.
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog, if you require any assistance or would like to discuss your own direct mail campaigns, we’d be happy to help.
