Are You Making These Deadly Marketing Mistakes?

Thanks to the internet, and the exponential growth of technology the marketing landscape is forever in flux. Reaching new customers becomes a more and more nuanced task every day, and it's easy to make marketing mistakes in this condition.

These mistakes can result in a poor brand image. According to CB Insights, poor marketing is one of the reasons small businesses fail.

This stat says one thing for sure - committing marketing errors can destroy your motivation, time, money, and energy.

In today's article, I will show you how to solve two of the deadliest marketing mistakes and save your business.

Are you ready? Let's get to it!

Marketing Mistake #1: No Focus On What Will Help People Survive and Thrive

Your marketing should focus on two things - Survive and Thrive. To survive means to avoid pain, and to thrive means to gain pleasure.

Avoiding pain and gaining pleasure are the only two reasons your customers make buying decisions.

You marketing must focus on how you can help customers survive and thrive. Most businesses focus on themselves, which is a huge mistake.

Marketing is all about showing the customer how you can help them.

Prioritizing customer needs can help improve relationships with your audience and maintain customers.

Why? Because customers love to feel special.

Prioritizing customers also lets you take a personalized approach towards meeting their needs.

Personalization is very important.

Here's proof:

90% of consumers found personalization appealing, while 80% said they would do business with a company that offers personalized approaches. - Epsilon

Personalization is one of the most powerful marketing tools on the planet. 

In the end, customers care about one very specific thing: they want to be seen, heard and understood. They want to know that you recognize who they are, what problems they are dealing with, and how you can help them solve their problems. 

Marketing Mistake #2: You Make It Difficult For People To Understand What You Have To Offer

Today, we want to get our hands on information quickly. If we don’t find what we want, we move on. Does it mean we are impatient?

It means two things.

First, it means that time is not a luxury anymore. We all have better things to do and hate wasting our precious time.

Second, humans have a short attention span. According to research, the human attention span has notably declined from 12 seconds to 8.25 seconds in just 15 years.

I find it both funny and interesting.

What’s more interesting is that a goldfish has an attention span of nine seconds! You have a higher success rate selling water to a fish than humans if you think about it.

What does it mean to marketers?

As marketers, If we make it challenging to understand what we do, how our product can benefit people, and what people need to do to buy it, then we will lose customers.

When you confuse, you lose! It's that simple.

How To Solve These Marketing Mistakes

Here’s the exciting part!

The biggest marketing mistakes I highlighted above are fixable. It’s not the end of the world if you make them.

The best solution to fix these marketing mistakes is to use STORYTELLING MARKETING.

Storytelling focuses on content and messaging that connects and resonates with potential and current customers. It requires creativity, vision, skill, and practice to be effective.

The framework of a compelling storytelling strategy goes like this:

A character who has a problem meets a guide who then gives a plan and calls the main character to take action. The action would lead the character to either succeed or fail.

Storytelling is an old trick that still works today!

Using a story is the easiest way to organize information to make it easy for people to understand.

A story also helps you highlight the ambitions of your customers, define their challenges, and provide a plan to help them overcome those challenges and be successful (survive and thrive).

Want to know how to get started? All you have to do is answer the questions I mentioned in our article: 7 Storytelling Marketing Steps.

And those are the deadly marketing mistakes that you need to fix NOW!

Those mistakes could break your brand quickly if you don’t figure out how to fix them.

Remember that the best way to correct them is to tell a story about how customers could overcome their problems.

Here are a few online resources for additional information:

Recommended Marketing Resources

• It's Not About You: The Great Marketing Mistake
• 20 Bonehead Marketing Mistakes You Must Avoid
• The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling

Now, don’t forget to TALK TO US if you want to learn more about how to solve these marketing mistakes.

So what do you think about this article? Are you ready to tell stories that would fix the flaws in your marketing?

Leave a comment below and let’s discuss.

Also, if you think this article is worth SHARING, it would be a great honor.

Header image courtesy of Stockunlimited.

About the Author Tim Fitzpatrick

Tim Fitzpatrick is the President of Rialto Marketing. At Rialto Marketing, we help take the guesswork out of marketing so your small business can grow. Marketing your business shouldn't be a constant challenge. If you are ready to eliminate the uncertainty and confusion of marketing your business, we can help.