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A solid marketing strategy is one of the key components to building a successful business. Despite its importance, it is also one of the elements of the business that companies struggle with most often.
Marketing is not just about having fun. If you want to increase your sales and build your brand, it is essential. It should be an important part of any business budget, but it’s also important to make sure that you make that marketing money work for you. Keeping track of these five most common marketing mistakes will help you increase revenue and ensure repeat business for your customers.
1. Put branding and lead generation in separate silos
Brand awareness and lead generation within a marketing space have very different KPIs. As a result, we often put them in separate silos, because we don’t think they’re together. However, when you separate these two elements from marketing, you run the risk of losing sales, making it difficult for potential customers to figure out where to buy your product. Customers may be exposed to your brand through your branding efforts, but if they are separated from your contact generation tactics, it is almost impossible for the customer to connect the dots.
Branding and lead generation must be linked from the point of first engagement, regardless of their different KPIs. Multichannel attribution is vital to achieving this. If you focus solely on individual criteria, you lose sight of the overall picture and therefore a lot of sales.
Related: Lead generation without Brand Trust is a lost game
2. Tactical disconnection
Incorrect attribution often occurs when we do not properly track a client’s entire journey. Your customer may see your product on a social media platform and not be ready to buy at that time, but your product is entered into their memory bank. Then, days or weeks later, they’ll be on another platform, see your product again, and make a purchase. When tracking sales attribution, you can assume that the social platform did not provide any value, which would be a costly mistake.
To avoid tactical disconnection, acknowledge that all platforms are working together to produce this sale and understand how it is happening. If you are leveraging a marketing campaign based on the latest tactic that seemed to close the sale, you are missing out on a lot of information. While an Instagram ad, for example, may not be set up for direct sales, it still contributes to the customer’s decision-making process. If you assign this sale to a Google ad, there is a disconnection. You are ignoring an entire stage of the customer’s journey and misinterpreting their route to your product.
3. Underutilization of phone calls
Phone calls are not being used by sellers. Most marketers view phone calls as sources of complaints or spam, but they are actually gold mines of information and opportunities. 60% of smartphone users will use the “click to call” feature to contact a business, which means your digital campaigns work in conjunction with phone calls to track sales, but it’s likely that only track the final sale.
To counteract this underutilization, start actively using phone calls to your advantage. Your customer base is made up of many different types of people. In one study, all respondents in the over-40s category considered phone calls to be one of the two main ways to contact a business. If you are not currently including phone calls in your multi-channel assignment, you should start.
Related: The underestimated value of missed phone calls from sellers
4. Do not invest in brand development
Many sellers believe that branding is wasted. KPIs for brand measurement are often softer than other marketing analytics. As a result, the measure of the brand is seen as an element that is not “real” and is therefore a waste.
It is important to recognize that the elements and name of your brand are very real and important parts of the image and public personality of your company. The brand is the point where potential customers become customers, and when there is real acceptance of the brand, they will also become recurring customers. If a large part of your marketing budget is dedicated to creating and maintaining the brand, it will pay off in the end.
5. Not having a single source of truth
Many companies rely on platform-specific analysis tools for your attribution data. However, if you use Google’s tools to tell you where to attribute your conversions, the answer is almost always Google. The same applies to all the different social networking sites. This is not to say that these platforms blatantly provide false information, it is just that their algorithms are biased to favor their own platforms, a fact that is not entirely useful if you are looking for accurate attribution data.
To avoid falling into platform-specific analytics, you need a single source of truth when it comes to attribution. This should be a reporting system that holistically evaluates multiple data channels and is completely independent of any of the platforms you use for marketing. This will not only tell you which levers to pull within your campaigns, but also show you the different contact points for your customer’s journey.
When done right, marketing can be the key to your business. A marketing plan that avoids these five common mistakes can connect you with customers who have never heard of your brand before. So does your marketing money work for you or against you?
Related: Are you making any of these 6 marketing mistakes?