7 Misconceptions of Marketing

What is the story you tell yourself about marketing. These are 7 of the most popular reasons that I have heard from business owners as to why they don’t think  marketing is worth investing in.

How many of these misconceptions have “they” sold you that are not serving you? As Wayne Dyer famously said “When you start looking at things differently the things you look at change."  If you own any of these beliefs I challenge you to and flip them and look at how things look if the oppositing is your story, what opportunities open up for you.

1         Good products and services sell themselves

A product or service has to be good to sell, that I agree with. However, thinking that you are going to create and sustain viral growth organically is akin to not bothering to go to work and earn money as you are going to win the lottery! 

Even great products need a marketing strategy in place to sustain popularity and desirability in the longer term ….. marketing is there to make sure you don’t leave your future to chance.

2         Marketing is only for new customers                                                                

Are you sat in that club that equates marketing to just creating new leads and new clients.   It is vital and very lucrative to address your current clients with the same attention as new business. Having  a strategy in place for both new and existing customers will build consistent predictable sales and take away that feast/famine rollercoaster. Repeat and returning business is where growth and profit are in the long run.  

Interested in knowing more, then check out my blog link  here https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/7-ways-wow-your-existing-customers-laura-greenwood/  for some great approaches to put in your marketing strategy to existing clients, consistent communication is important for all your audience.

3         Advertising is too expensive and doesn’t work anymore

Marketing evolved through advertising and the deal was trying to go out and catch your clients and prospects through advertising, direct mail and sales driven promotions, which definitely benefitted those with larger budgets. Alas, in the euphoria and battle for attention a distrust amongst consumers towards advertising and faceless corporations with ulterior motives emerged to spoil the fun!  So now we had a dilemna - how can you hope to serve the very people you want to fall in love with you when those same people don’t even trust you??

A very warm welcome to Inbound Marketing, it is here to stay. To call it a “marketing” strategy is slightly undervaluing it, its true purpose is for a company wide cultural revolution where being good for the customer meets good for the business. Inbound Marketing is the flip in approach from shouting and fighting for attention in a crowded marketplace to letting clients find you by creating relevant content, blogs, engagement, the promise of continued value so you become the brand of choice (with a great, profitable Call To Action) when they are ready to buy. It’s a long game but when the traction does come success builds on success and your authority intact, you have gone through the know, like trust, buy, building authority and strong roots for a long term relationship along the way. 

As for paid for advertising, it still has its place with great focused targeting and trackable results with great data analysis available to show you how it has performed you can soon cut out that which is an “expense” but keep investing in the marketing “investments” which give you a return.

4         Social media is for kids

It may seem this is the case but the whole world is on social media so it stands to reason that your clients are too and they are findable and targetable so what is not to love! Choose your platform, or if I can correct myself choose your ideal client’s platform(s) of choice and hang out there with great posts, engaging in what they are interested in and getting conversations going. Create landing pages and craft powerful calls to action as you invite your ideal clients on a journey with you. Coverage and exposure is still very good across most platforms so go and explore what you have been missing out on and start to connect converse and engage in commerce.

5         We have a website, we spent loads of money on it and it doesn’t work

Another huge misconceptions is that your online world will work without you "build it and it does all the work for you".   It doesn't it needs nurture, tweaking and updating to build your audience and get the right people into your world. You dont have to do everything at once - take a step by step approach, testing and measuring as you go to get your world in order.   The feedback on a blog is more long term, it will work better as time goes on (upto 6 months down the line) and they get indexed independently by Google,  By creating landing pages and automated email sequences you can really start to build engagement with your website visitors and potential clients and see what content they devour and where they drop off. 

6         SEO is expensive

 A hugely misunderstood powertool is SEO and all things around Googleads and PPC but I stand strong when I say that done correctly, by experts,  SEO is an investment that will work for you in your sleep.   I wrote this idiots guide on SEO as I get asked to explain it alot to clients so check out my article here https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/lead-generation-google-ads-analytics-laura-greenwood/. I hope it helps explain it to you too and it gives you some idea about how powerful it is when incorporated into your online world.   In a nutshell, SEO  requires budget and strategy but executed well it will drive warm leads to your door looking for a strong call to action, the data and analytics available will keep it as an investment rather than

7         We only need 1% of the market we operate in

Aiming for 1% of a huge market is not a niche or even a recommended strategy it is winging it. It is unfocused and means you still have to use huge amount of energy to communicate with the whole market in order to grab a tiny bit of it.

Looking at your whole world and carving it up into different segments to focus on one (or more) which is small enough to reach but big enough to serve you is the way to go. What do you do then? Simple, you go and become the expert in that niche. You find everything out about that segment you have picked so you can almost write down the conversation that your client is having in their head. You totally show you understand where they are at and the problems and pains they are experiencing. By virtue of the fact that you understand their problem it stands to reason that they might assume you know the solution and you now invited to show them what they need. For further information see my blog on the power of niche marketing here https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/nail-your-niche-laura-greenwood/.

How many times did you catch yourself nodding, did you allow yourself to consider the flip side to each point – how would it feel to stand for something, get visible connect and communicate in your market. 

My name is Laura Greenwood and I created my company Your Lead Generation to be the plug in marketing woman of action I was looking for over the 20 years I built and ran our family business.  I offer “Done for You” retained monthly marketing contracts and offer ￡99 nail your niche or ask me anything marketing calls over Skype or Zoom if there is a particular challenge or you need some inspiration to get into action. Message me here on Linked In or email [email protected].