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1. Lack a defined marketing strategy
This is where most businesses are penny-wise and pound foolish. Many businesses feel they can’t afford the assistance of an outside marketing company, but what they don’t realize is that by developing a solid foundation strategy and tactical plan, they will avoid wasting the majority of their marketing spending.
Some examples of practices that lead to this problem are:
- Trial-and-error Evolution in strategies
- This year’s plan is based on last year’s plan
- Follow-the-leader, whatever their competitors do, they follow
- Don’t define a differentiated value proposition
Poor Examples:
“We give good service”
“Our product is first-rate”
“We have great experience”
Unless you can prove that no one else possesses these broad claims, then these are likely requirements for operating in your market. A poorly differentiated value proposition forces greater spending to create results.
For the business owners reading this, ask yourself, “Am I comfortable that I am getting an adequate return on investment from my marketing dollars?” If you’re not sure, then keep reading. Keep count of how many of the other ways your business is guilty of. wasteful spending
2. Poor Marketing Budgeting
- Spread themselves too thin
- Stretch their spending out over the entire year
- Try too many media options
- Include administrative costs in their marketing budgets
- Under-allocate for true marketing efforts
- Ad-to-Sales Ratios
3. "Doing it yourself" cost savings strategy
- Print generic content themselves
- Desktop publishing trap
4. Lack consistency in their brand positioning
5. Marketing messages are advantage-laden
- Too many features and advantages, and not enough benefits
- They focus all their messages on prospects in the comparison stage of the buying process.
- Don’t focus enough attention on the emotional influencers, too rational
6. Rely on media salespeople to provide guidance
- Since most business owners have to be good negotiators, they make the mistake of thinking by negotiating a good rate that they have made a good media purchase. The problem is that most often they made the decision to buy this particular media option based on weak data. Frequently, the data is from the media salesperson.
- FACT: Media salespeople are paid to get you to buy their medium.
- Media decisions should be based on your strategic plan, not on a perceived valuation.
7. They lack meaningful ROMI tracking mechanisms
8. Lack Lead/Prospect Management Systems
- Count on “Sales” to handle this aspect of their marketing
- Fact is, most salespeople are closers, not marketers
- Salespeople have a short-term outlook, what will make me money today
- This limits the ROI from marketing, because only the “Ready-to-buy” prospects are influenced.
By developing systems designed to capture leads, convert them to prospects and follow-through with sales, you can substantially increase the ROMI.
9. They don’t invest adequate resources toward customer retention
- A recent AMA (American Marketers Association) study found that lost customers will simply stop using your product or service without telling you why, and that lost customers are 12 times more likely than happy customers to share their bad experiences with friends and colleagues.
- Do you know your customer retention rate and why you have lost customers recently?
- Top reasons for low customer retention rates tend to include:
- Service issues (bad or confusing)
- Pricing issues (too expensive or confusing)
- Better offer from competition
- Location changes, or
- Product or service no longer needed.
10. Poor Strategies for the Internet
- View their website as an online brochure
- Focus on the look of their website, and not the customer’s experience
- Lack lead capture strategies
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