Avoid These Ten Common Mistakes

Some companies fail to engage with their target audience for simple reasons. Avoid these ten common mistakes.

Pushing an Immediate Purchase

If you have a storefront or service, do you push hard to get an immediate purchase? That drives consumers away. They want to see your price, compare prices with others, and research reviews. Immediate savings if the purchase is completed in X minutes is annoying. Saying that there are only two left and that the shopper needs to buy now or miss out is equally frustrating. Plus, if they come back tomorrow and the same two are left, you’ll lose their trust.

Failing to Respond to Questions and Comments Within a Day or Two

Do you have a form for consumers to fill out if they have questions? Where do those forms end up? If you take email questions and suggestions, make sure someone is responding to them. A good rule of thumb is to have a response completed and returned within 24 hours. If it’s taking weeks or you simply don’t respond, you’re going to lose their interest.

Missing the Chance to Interact in Comments

You have a strong social media presence, but you never respond to comments people leave. That’s a missed opportunity to form a connection. Engage with your customers and form a bond that makes them want to stay.

Focusing on Your Business Rather Than the Consumer

Your bottom line is obviously your goal, but the consumer doesn’t need to know that’s it. If you’re focused so much on your business that you ignore their wants and needs, you end up driving them away. Learn to balance your business’s needs with what your consumers want.

Obviously, you want to sell your service or product. Your brand requires a return on investment to succeed, but you cannot be so involved in selling that you don’t support the consumer, too.

Overlooking Potential Pain Points When Navigating a Site or App    

Has your UX team or website team gone over your site or app to make sure nothing was overlooked? Pain points can drive consumers away. What is a pain point? By Merriam-Webster’s definition, it’s “a recurring problem that inconveniences or annoys customers.”

Here’s a great example of a pain point. You’re reading a news article and a few paragraphs into it, you get a message that you must subscribe to continue. You don’t want to pay money to read one article, so you leave the site and never get to finish the article or search for an article on a competitor’s site.

Be very careful about requiring consumers to share private information in order to do something. If they want to sign up, great. If they want to use your service as a guest, allow it or plan to lose many of them to the competition.

Ignoring the User’s Needs and Preferences

Are you ignoring your user’s preferences? If your brand welcomes people from around the world, but there’s no option to change the language on menus or your registration form only accepts U.S. addresses, are you really meeting their needs? 

Aiming for One-Size-Fits-All

You’ve created what you want your ideal consumer to do with your app or website. Your marketing campaign is based on this ideal client and dream experience. The reality is that not every consumer is the same. They all have different needs and desires. If you’re focused on one-size-fits-all, you’re making a major mistake.

Imagine your restaurant has a new app to make it easy for diners to order, but your current customer base is made up of 50% smartphone users, 40% internet users, and 10% phone users. If you move your ordering system to an app only, you lose people who prefer the phone or internet. That’s half of your diners eliminated.

Sharing Content or Messages With No Value

When you’re posting social media content or posting to your blog, is it relevant? It needs to have value or it will never draw traffic. Suppose you’re the owner of a marketing agency. You decide to share a movie review on your blog. It doesn’t fit what you do, so consumers will wonder what’s the point. Make sure the content you share is valuable.

Forgetting to Reward Loyal Consumers

You have consumers who regularly purchase your service or support your brand through subscription services. Do you reward them? If you’re not even saying thank you, why should they stay with you and not switch to another brand?

Imagine you own a local coffee roaster. You have an online shopper who purchases coffee every month, and you ship the order out, but you never do anything special. The quality of your coffee may be amazing, but they don’t feel important so they leave to try another brand. You could have kept them by offering a small reward, such as 10% off every fourth order.

Lacking a Personal Touch

When you post messages on social media or send out emails or newsletters, have you created a persona that consumers will relate to? Consumers need to know that your brand has similar values and passions. Make sure you’re reaching your consumers on a personal level.

You also have to keep in mind that your beliefs and values may not match every consumer’s beliefs and values. It’s your choice on how you’ll approach sensitive topics, but remember that if you do address anything that’s highly emotional, you may alienate some and draw the interest of others.

Sometimes being daring and open can be a great move for gaining new consumers, but it also can drive some away. Make sure your personal touch tries to embrace everyone, no matter their views, and listen to their points in an objective, open-minded way.

Rethink Your Marketing Plan

Look over that list and measure it against your current marketing plan. Are you making any of the common mistakes? It’s easy to change your plan to ensure you engage with all consumers and not just a small selection. These are the questions you need to ask and answer.

What is your budget? Before you even get started, decide how much money you have to spend on marketing.
How do your competitors market their brand, product, or service? Check out their app, website, and social media accounts to see what they’re doing.
Who is your target audience? Identify everyone by looking at the profiles of your competitors’ followers. Have you considered all of the age groups, genders, and socioeconomic groups?
How would they want to connect with you? If your brand is designed for working women, look to see which social media platforms are the most popular with women in their 20s to 60s, as all of those age groups are in the working world.
Do you use social media yet? If not, sign up now on the major ones like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube.
Do you know how you’ll monitor your results? What are your key performance indicators? If you’re measuring success by increased sales, make sure you have a plan in place for tracking sales. If it’s for newsletter sign-ups, have a way to calculate how many new people sign up for your newsletter.

Depending on your brand, you may need to assess your marketing plan every month, every few months, or just once a year. If you sell items, you should assess your plan’s effectiveness a few times a year, especially if your sales are higher seasonally or on holidays. If your company delivers heating fuel, you may be busier during the fall and winter than in the summer. Adjust your marketing plans as you need.

Does your administrative team lack marketing expertise? Not every company has the manpower to do its own marketing. Factory 360 specializes in all areas of marketing, including UX design, social media marketing, product demonstrations, and many other specialties. We’re happy to discuss your current marketing plan and help you design a plan that is certain to help you engage with your target audience.