1.  Based on the current need, the company “thinks” its marketing is job is done.

Statistics prove that once you stop your marketing engine, it will take time to get it back up and fully functioning again. A well-oiled marketing engine consistently and continuously trickles out a steady stream of prospective customers that are interested in buying your product or service. Peak periods followed by slow periods result in higher costs / lower profits for any business.

Making sales consistently helps you better balance your inventory, make better volume incentive-based purchases, better manage resource capacity/employee staffing, which all combine to drive better overall profitability for your business.

Shutting off new entries into the sales pipeline is suicidal for any company and should be avoided at all costs. Just because you think you’re busy enough right now is no excuse to turn away business. A prospective customer will NOT likely wait for you to start marketing again, and will instead shop elsewhere. You’re only helping a competitor to become a stronger adversary.   learn more

2.  There is no coherent business & marketing strategy

A company’s marketing strategy should always be linked back to that company’s business strategy. When creating a business strategy, your executive team identified how they expect to utilize every type of resource at their disposal to the best possible advantage, in an attempt to grow a healthy business.

Marketing’s job is to take that business strategy and use it to attract the types of customers defined as “ideal” by the executive team. The marketing team should also create core messages that exploit your business strategy and leave simple one or two-word thoughts in a prospective customer’s mind of what your company stands for.

Standing for something that makes sense to the prospective customer differentiates you from all your competitors, helps you to stand out, and helps the prospect lean more towards your direction   learn more

3.  Failure to establish a unique company image and “market positioning” that differentiates you.

The Internet has changed the way we shop. Prospective customers are typically comparing several competitors before making a purchase. If everything about your product/service appears to be about the same as your competitors, the quickest, easiest, and most common way to determine who to buy from and what to buy is PRICE.

You need to have something that differentiates you from other competitors.

Failure to differentiate from other competitors is the number one reason that companies are forced to discount their products/services.   learn more

4.  Failure to commit the resources needed to develop and execute an ongoing marketing program

Marketing requires a commitment of time, effort, money, and resources. Few companies ever really take the time and effort needed to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy.

I believe the reason for this to be that few smaller to medium-sized businesses have the resources required to do this work internally. A huge mistake would be to try to recruit/hire these resources unless your company is approaching 100 FTEs or larger. Contracting with a marketing expert that understands your business, your market, and your competitors is a much less expensive and much more effective alternative.

Developing a marketing strategy is pretty much a one-time requirement that is reviewed and adjusted on an annual basis.

Another big mistake that is common with small and medium-sized businesses would be to hire an expensive marketing person and then have no money left to spend on-demand generation. With less than 80 to 100 FTEs, marketing within a business is all about the “Demand Generation” period, and thereby internal marketing executives are not needed.   learn more

5.  Search engine invisibility

I don’t think I need to talk much about the importance of the web to a typical business.

Remember, your website is the “first impression” a prospective customer gets of you. Consider that if you are invisible to the search engines, you never get invited to participate in the potential sales opportunity.

On a related topic, some companies claim that the cost of executing an on-demand Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing campaign is more expensive than traditional methods/campaigns.

Targeting the correct keyword phrases, not overbidding for a word or phrase, and matching the keyword phrase with the right offer and landing page, all work to control the cost of on-demand marketing. I find that when done correctly, PPC campaigns are often less costly, and the results are much more measurable.   learn more

If you find yourself guilty of any one or more of these five marketing crimes, take action today. Delaying work costs your company money every single day!