Six Marketing Mistakes Your Business Can’t Afford to Make

As the economy downturns, businesses often panic and make marketing mistakes that prove very costly. Mistakes that could cost you dearly in lost customers and shrinking profits. It may even threaten the very survival of your company.

Here are six of the more common mistakes;

Mistake # 1- “I’m ok – my business has plenty of satisfied customers and I don’t need to do anything. I can ride the current downturn out”: Doing nothing may only make matters worse. It’s important that you actively seek new customers and new channels for sales, whether there is a downturn in the economy or not – having a website or an online presence opens your business up to a much wider audience. It’s also worth remembering that in times of economic downturn many businesses and customers are looking to cut their supplier costs and go online to source more price conscious products and services.

Mistake # 2 – “I’ve got to slash my marketing budget to save money”: A typical knee-jerk reaction is to simply cut your marketing budget, believing it will stop your business losses. Truth is that all it cuts is profits, making a bad problem much worse. What you really need to do is make your marketing campaigns more effective and make more informed decisions.

Mistake # 3 – “I’m way too busy to research my marketing campaigns.” Most companies don’t understand which marketing works for them and which doesn’t”. Proper research can identify marketing that generates profits. Online marketing allows you to track all aspects of your marketing campaigns, keywords used to find your web site, web traffic, referrals, visitors, conversions, page views and even bounce rates for individual web pages.

Mistake # 4 – “I don’t know how much my leads are costing. Anyway does it matter if we’re in profit?” Every pound you spend on marketing should have a specific measurable result. If you don’t measure your marketing results effectively you may as well throw your money away.

Mistake # 5 – “I don’t need to check the changes I make to my marketing campaigns”: You need to monitor any changes you make to your marketing campaigns to make sure that they are effective –if after a set period of time a campaign is not effective then stop it immediately and assess any changes that may be needed – remember don’t throw good money after bad.

Mistake # 6 – “Everything I do won’t work – we’re in a recession and no one is spending”: Spending doesn’t stop because of an economic downturn – it’s simply that businesses and customers are looking for better prices, more value for money and quality services. Your business should look to provide these and your marketing campaigns should reinforce this.

Increased costs of raw materials, services; products etc will lead to businesses and customers looking further afield and, more importantly, online for more cost effective solutions. Now is actually a good time for your business to have a website.

The state of today’s economy should be seen as an opportunity to scrutinise your marketing campaigns, identify new opportunities and to look at new ways of maximising your present profits. Plus if you can maximise profits in a downturn think how successful will you be when the economy begins to grow again?