Stephanie Donelson

There are plenty of blogs and articles out there that tell you what you should do with your marketing, but what about the things you do that you shouldn’t?

Today I’m covering some common marketing mistakes that get even the best of us. Some of these mistakes just show up over time or because we find ourselves churning out campaigns without pausing to reflect and see where we stand, and sometimes these mistakes happen because of pressure from other teams, departments, or leadership.

Let’s take it back to the basics and review some mistakes that are easy to make and in some ways, even easier to avoid in future marketing campaigns or efforts!

1. The sales pitch

Not every piece of content needs to be a sales pitch or solely about you. Not everyone wants to only read or listen to content about how great your brand is.

It’s about your customers. Always.

Your content cannot only be promotional or opportunities to sell people on your products or services. Your content should aim to inform, educate, and entertain. Sales content does have its place once you have a marketing prospect’s interest. Like on social media, your content should follow the 80/20 rule: 80% of your content is non-promotional or just about your brand and the other 20% can be salesy.

I think the biggest offenders are webinars, where it’s easy to talk up your product or service, as well as blogs where you can add a sales-focused CTA. Think about the buyer’s journey to ensure you have plenty of Top-of-Funnel content to attract prospects without turning them off with a constant sales pitch.

2. Too many emails

This is one I’ve noticed a lot more these last two years – especially from online retailers who know we’re home. I get it, Ipsy, you’re having a sale. Thanks, HelloFresh, for the free boxes for my friends that don’t reward me at all for my loyalty. Stop recommending shirts I didn’t buy, Stitch Fix. Cool your jets, Man Crates, yes, I looked at a gift for my husband but you don’t need to follow me to my inbox.

Can you tell I’m frustrated with these brands?

And these are brands I’m loyal to! But I might not be if they continue to blow up my inbox with too many emails. At this point all I feel is annoyance when I see their names pop up in the from line.

Our marketing automation tools make it so easy to set up different welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, promotional emails, and nurture emails that it gets overwhelming on the customer’s end.

Take a good look at the rules you have in place to ensure your customers aren’t being bombarded with emails, especially if the emails have somewhat conflicting messaging or identical messaging.

If you’ve noticed your unsubscribe rates are creeping up and you have different departments with access to your email marketing tool, it might be time to implement a cross-functional team review or weekly meeting to ensure you’re not sending too many emails to the same people.

3. Having an inconsistent voice

Is your brand’s voice elevated and elegant? Funny and hip? Conservative and professional? Laid back and affirmative?

Does your brand share memes or GIFs? Does your brand have controversial takes? Does your brand not joke around?

Your brand’s personality and humanized voice is often the reason people remain loyal as customers. It’s similar to our friends, we like being around like-minded people and those we actually like.

Your brand’s voice has to be consistent, even if you have multiple people creating content and sharing it on social media. Everyone should be on board and ready to play the part of the brand.

A good example is Wendy’s social media. On Twitter, they’re known for doing their roasts of other brands. It’s quite funny and it works for them as it plays into their menu. Imagine now if American Airlines were to do the same thing. People could be put off as it doesn’t match the brand’s personality.

Stick to your brand guidelines and make sure everyone knows how to write and respond as the brand before they can post as the brand.

4. No promotion plan for content

Another common mistake is thinking like Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will come.

Trust me, if you don’t promote your own content and optimize it correctly, no one is coming to your field of marketing assets.

You have to have a promotion plan for your marketing content. How will you make sure people see this content?

• How soon after it’s published will you share it on social media?
• Will you promote it on social media?
• Will you send it out in an email newsletter?
• Will you add it to an active email nurture stream?
• Will you promote it through a banner ad on another site?
• Will you sponsor it on an industry association’s blog?
• Will you create a PPC campaign around it?
• Will you partner with an influencer to share it?

These questions can help you think through your promotion channels so you’re not just publishing your post or new asset and hoping people stumble across it.

5. Lack of testing

Now this mistake is easier to make when resources are tight as sometimes we as marketers have to do the best with what we can and adjust later. If you have the resources and time, I definitely recommend A/B testing as much as you can to better understand your customers and what they want from your brand.

What are you testing?

• Subject lines
• Calls to action
• Images and/or video
• Marketing copy
• Length of copy
• Email design
• Landing page design

These types of tests can help you write better copy elsewhere, like on your website, on social, or in PPC ads, and it helps you understand how your customers navigate your content. Do they prefer CTA buttons at the top of a landing page or as the final option to take action? Do your customers like puns in your subject lines or are they more likely to click when it’s a question? You won’t know until you test!

6. It doesn’t drive leads

Of course the end goal for marketing is driving qualified leads into your database and turning them into customers. You need to make sure you’re collecting your leads’ contact information but you also want to make sure you’re not pushing them away from your brand by being too pushy about getting those details!

Find the right balance of gated and un-gated marketing content to help prospects get to know you and your brand, but if they want the good stuff they have to offer something up in return.

Check out my post on lead generation to learn more!

What other marketing mistakes do you see brands commonly making? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!