Reasons Why Your Marketing isn't Effective and How to Fix It

Has your company marketed and marketed, yet business still struggles to see significant positive changes? Then it's time to take a look at your marketing efforts. Here are four common marketing errors that businesses make and solutions to fix them.

1. You're Using Dead Marketing Techniques

Traditional marketing is dead, according to Bill Lee at the Harvard Business Review. If you are still spending all of your marketing efforts on things like advertisements, corporate marketing and branding, your company is not going to get the attention it desires. Today, customers are looking to their peers to determine which company to do business with. What does this mean for your business? It means, you need to get social.

1. Focus on building your social media presence.
2. Interact with your existing and potential customers.
3. Create a community feeling on your social media sites.
4. Utilize sites like Zuberance to encourage people to rate and talk about your company.

2. Your Presentation is Third Rate

The presentation of your company's product or service is the first and sometimes only thing people will see, so make it good. If your business marketing efforts have not been successful, the presentation may be to blame, according to Thompson Data. Here are some common presentation problems and solutions:

1. Does the presentation look professional and clean? If not, hire a professional graphic designer to design new logos and graphics.
2. Does your company webpage, brochures and other product or service information contain clear and concise information? If not, hire a professional writer to create quality content.
3. Quick solutions to improve design:

• 99designs.com (crowdsourced designs)
• swiftly.com (quick design fixes)
• gimpshop.com (free photoshop tools)

3. Your Product or Service Isn't Marketable

At the end of the day, if your product or service isn't very good, no amount of marketing can help you out, points out Mike Masnick in his article on Tech Dirt. If your company is focusing its marketing efforts in all the right places and still isn't seeing business, it's time to take a look at its products and services. Go back to the drawing board. Is your company's product or service what people are looking for? What can make your products or services better? Here are some ways to find the answers to these questions:

1. Ask people what they want on your social media sites.
2. Ask your previous and current customers for feedback.
3. Take a look at what your competitors are offering and see what they are doing better.

4. You're Just Throwing More Money at Ads

Most marketing channels won't work for your business. Traditional ad initiatives are most successful with major brands who have massive advertising budgets. Depending on your budget, you will test various marketing channels, but think outside of ad spend. What can you do with your current customers that will help you promote your products and services?

1. What are free marketing initiatives that you can test before going down the road of traditional marketing channels? Referral programs and incentives?
2. Guest posting and creating a community around your current customers. Share your customer stories and make them heroes for your company.
3. Would you rather invest in design and content first before paying for traffic?
4. How can you build an audience through your newsletter or through email programs?

If you need to spend...

If you're going to invest in online marketing channels, consider what your goal is and how much budget you have. Online ad spend should be after your product and services are scalable and ready for new clients. Ad traffic will not typically be the highest quality (compared to referral or organic traffic), but it does bring in new clients.

1. Adwords : Great for driving leads or conversions, but first figure out how much you're willing to pay for each lead/conversion. Search is not a demand generating channel, but captures demand. Is your product or services searchable? Budget range: $300 to $30,000 per month.
2. Display : Google Display Network (GDN) is a great way to test display ads. You can run either text ads, static image ads, or flash ads across various publishers. GDN has no minimums so you can start small and scale. GDN is not ideal for driving conversions, but is a fantastic channel to gain impressions. Budget: $500 to $20,000 per month

3. Re-targeting : GDN allows re-targeting as well with no minimums. Adroll and Retargeter are also other great services that start at relatively low budgets. Re-targeting will typically perform better than behavioral display ads, but consider how much you want to follow your audience around the internet. Budget: $800 to $15,000 (Depends on your monthly website traffic)/ $1,500 minimum for Retargeter.