Ouch! Your Marketing Campaign Failed...Here Are 3 Reasons Why

We are now living and working in an era that demands and expects more from your business and brand. Unfortunately, for many brands both offline & online marketing campaigns seem to be stuck in the past.  It's as if you're using a Nokia phone from 1997 and expecting it to compete with today's smart phone technology.  You're simply going to be at a major disadvantage.

If you tend to be resistant to change, stuck in the past and not open to new ideas that your marketing campaigns may fail harder than Greece’s economy. And as somone with strong Greek lineage it stings to have to admit that.

Typically, when I go through an analysis with a client I notice that most failures come from simple fundamental errors.

And in order to avoid these pitfalls, I've boiled it down to my top 3 reasons why your marketing campaign might not be working, and what you can do to fix it:

# 1 - Not Fully Understanding Your Ideal Customer Target

You’re excited about building your brand, and a major part of that journey is crafting compelling creative marketing initiatives. However, before any creative juices start flowing, you must fully understand your audience, the problems they are encountering that you beleive you can solve, intimate knowledge of the competitive landscape and then carving out a razor sharp unique selling proposition to fully differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack.

Consider, developing a thorough customer audit.  You'd be surprised how your current customers perception of you can have an impact on what makes you unique.  Invariably, it can help you understand the relationship of your brand to your customer base.  It can also shape how you craft messaging to desired potential customers.   By gaining information from your customers about your company’s purchase cycles, decision processes, and product/service gaps, offers invaluable insights for your sales team about the best sales opportunities as well as appropriate times to optimize sales messaging.

Going into this process means you have to be vulnerable.  And by that I mean, take down your defensive posture and be willing to listen and hear truth from a completely different perspective.  My hunch is that once you have completed this process, you’ll have a better understanding of the existing relationship between your brand and its customer base.

Fully understand the nature and composition of your target audience takes time and is hard work.  In order to develop rich target customer personas to create an ideal representation of your target consumer I'd give your target a name, define their age range and income, address socioeconomic positioning, and build out this persona or personas as much as you can. Once you complete this evaluation process, your marketing will be better equipped to execute marketing communications that are intelligent, effective, on-brand, and on-target.

# 2 - You've Missed The Mark When Assessing The Competitive Landscape

Keep your friends close, but your enemies even closer.

To effectively and successfully execute your marketing campaigns, you need to first understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges for your business.  In assessing this overall picture, it’s vital that you examine not only your own situation, but also the marketing landscape as it relates to your competition.

Again, be real with yourself for a moment and don't judge your situation with emotion.  Look at it as if your an outsider looking in.

What you can also do is review the current industry setting and marketing trends to determine how competitors position and promote their brands and product lines across various points of customer interaction.

Then what you can do is make a trail and map where competitors trek across to understand where they’re positioned in the potential customers’ minds (physical benefits) and hearts (emotional benefits).

These positioning maps will then help you identify benefit gaps in the marketplace because all too often it turns into a game of who can make more noise.

# 3 - Being Too Similar To You’re Competitors

If you tend to copy your competitors, you’re going to be following in their footsteps for the most part. And if you’re following in their footsteps, you’re always going to be in second place at the very best.

Would copying someone else be best for the customer?

There are instances where keeping your eye out on the competition can take you off the mark and that might not be what's actually best for your customer.  Don't get lost in the noise.  Filter out noise and concentrate on your customer.

Unfortunately, it’s becoming harder and harder for new companies to enter into markets as the underdogs these days, even if you have a superior product or service.

Why is that?

Because winning in the marketplace isn’t just about creating the better product. It’s about getting your target audience to believe it’s the better fit.  And influencing potential customers perception comes down to:

"How You Sell" NOT "What You Sell".

This is where educational based marketing can allow your brand to position itself as an industry thought leader.

Numerous free platforms such as LinkedIn allow you to carve out a trail all to your own.  No more waiting for the next big thing...because it's already here.

Our world has been built upon agility, the ability to adapt and innovation. Use all of these things to your advantage. Even the smallest organisms can change an entire ecosystem.

Final Thoughts

Of course this list is essentially endless. However, it’s important to tackle one thing at a time, and starting at the foundation of your brand is usually a great stepping-stone.

Just remember that effective marketing requires a complete understanding and analysis of your entire working environment. Make a plan, and always be open to adaptation.

What other failures have you endured when launching a marketing campaign?