Why Your Marketing Sucks

Starting a Campaign Without Specific Goals and Plans

When it comes to developing effective marketing campaigns, you should set specific marketing goals. It’s not enough to just say that your main objective is to increase your sales or create more brand awareness.

Your marketing goal should be measurable. Not only does this allow you to map out your marketing plan accordingly, but it also gives you an easy way to measure the success of your campaign.

By creating a marketing plan without a specific set of objectives, you will have no idea what you should focus on. As a result, your marketing efforts will be inconsistent. Your strategies will not have the same look and feel since you are not following any strict rules. This prevents you from having a solid grasp of your target audience, hindering you from snatching their attention and converting them into actual customers.

However, by identifying your marketing goals, it will be easier for you to come up with strategies that can help you achieve your objectives for the campaign. With a marketing plan to base every effort you make, you can ensure that all aspects of the campaign are organized and the focus is on the strategies that really matter.

Not Doing Proper Research

When it comes to developing effective marketing campaigns, you must understand what your target audience wants and how you can connect with them. The best way to do this is through conducting proper research.

It’s never a good idea to create a marketing strategy based solely on hunches. While you may think that you know your target market very well and can create things that can make an impact on them, there is no better way to confirm it other than doing actual research.

As something you will spend thousands on, you need to guarantee that you completely understand your target market, your brand, and the current competitive landscape in your niche. That way, all marketing decisions you will make will be based on solid research and not just blind assumptions.

If you only base your marketing strategy on guesswork, there is a huge possibility that it will not be effective. Your assumptions about your audience, competitors, and industry may not be entirely accurate. This prevents you from mapping out a marketing plan that your target market will notice. On top of that, not doing proper research will also prohibit you from knowing which marketing channels are best for you.

Don’t Forget To Review Your Past Marketing Campaigns

Even if your current marketing sucks, there are still some good ideas that you may be able to get from it. That’s why it’s important that you review your previous campaigns to see the results of the marketing efforts you’ve done in the past.

Doing this allows you to know why your campaign did not deliver your desired results. It’s important that you be extra cautious about exploring the same approach if it didn't work before. You can either abandon the strategies that didn’t work or find ways in which you can improve them so that they will be effective in your next campaign.

Your Brand Positioning Is Not On-point

One of the biggest reasons why a marketing campaign sucks is because you wrongly position your brand. Aside from having a deep understanding of your target market, you should also clearly identify what your brand is and what it stands for. This way, you can create a marketing campaign that exhibits your brand clearly, allowing you to connect with your target market.

For example, if you’re a smartphone brand focusing on releasing gaming phones, do you think that it’s a good idea to position your brand as a sophisticated or stylish choice for your customers? Wouldn’t it be better to capture a voice that your target audience can relate more to, such as fun and energetic vibes?

While it’s up to you to choose how you will position your brand to make it stand out, you should make sure that it’s based on what fits your company and what your target market will find appealing. If you fail to position your brand properly, your marketing efforts won’t be able to stick in the mind of your target market, preventing them from recognizing your brand as something they should consider.

You're Not Targeting All Potential Customers

Identifying who your target audience is is important in creating an effective marketing campaign. That way, you know who you will address in all the creatives you are going to release on different marketing channels.

It is never a good idea to target a broad audience. If you are too general when it comes to your messaging, potential customers won’t be able to relate to your creatives, thus not making any conversions or sales.

However, this doesn’t mean that you should only target one set of audiences. While it is important to attract new customers, you should also include creatives dedicated to previous and current customers. That way, you can connect with them and ensure repeat business.

You may be focusing too much on garnering new customers that you fail to develop strategies that could enhance brand loyalty. This is a huge marketing mistake since the influx of new customers will lessen over time. To ensure that your business will continue to strive, you need to ensure that customers also return back to you.

This is the reason why a lot of companies offer loyalty programs as part of their marketing plans. It’s a good strategy to encourage customers to make another purchase from you or use your services again. However, creating marketing strategies focused on existing customers doesn’t just end with introducing loyalty programs. You can also come up with social media posts that remind previous customers about what your brand can offer them.

You’re Copying Your Competitors

One of the things you should be aware of when creating a marketing campaign is what your competitor is currently doing. However, some companies wrongly use the data they’ve acquired from their competitive landscape research. Instead of creating unique campaigns that make their brand stand out, they just copy the strategies that their competitors use.

While it is a good idea to base your marketing strategies on what your competitors are currently doing, you should never just copy what works for them. First of all, there is no guarantee that it will also work for you. Secondly, this prevents you from differentiating your brand from the competition, preventing you from convincing your target market that you are the better choice.

What you can do instead is study what strategies your competitors are implementing. Doing so will allow you to find ways in which you can improve their marketing strategies and customize them so that they will match your brand better.

Keep in mind that your goal is to make your brand stand out. Whether you’re new or not in the business, it’s important to give your target market a reason to believe that you are the better choice compared to your competitors.

Ignoring Possible Marketing Opportunities

Ignoring possible marketing opportunities is a common mistake a lot of companies make, which is the primary reason why their marketing sucks. As part of your marketing research, you need to determine where your target market is. Just because social media is a big thing now doesn’t mean that you should focus only on developing a purely digital campaign.

The thing is, for some companies, a digital marketing campaign may not be the best marketing channel to penetrate. This is true for companies whose target market is not heavy social media users.

For example, if your company is selling medicine dedicated to older people, launching a purely digital campaign may not be the best way to connect to your target market. However, the only way to confirm which marketing channels are best to penetrate is through research, which we discussed above.

For most brands, having a diversified marketing campaign is the best thing to do. This means that their marketing budget will be divided into different marketing strategies. Depending on your marketing budget and objectives, this can include television and radio ads, billboards, social media marketing, activations, sponsorships, and so much more. However, keep in mind that you don’t need to utilize all marketing opportunities out there. You just need to identify which strategies will work best for your brand and allot enough budget for each strategy.

Not Alotting Enough Budget

As mentioned, diversification is important in launching an effective marketing campaign. However, how will you successfully pull this off if you fail to recognize the importance of allocating enough budget for your campaigns?

Budgeting is an important part of marketing. Most marketing strategies that you come up with will require you to spend a certain amount. While there are marketing channels that you can use for free, such as social media, the reach of most of your organic posts will be limited. A lot of times, the only way to reach a new audience through social media is via paid posts.

The budget you need to allot for your campaign will be based on your campaign objectives. If you want to significantly increase your sales or market share, then expect that you need to spend a larger amount, too.

To determine an adequate budget for your marketing efforts, you need to carefully review your marketing plan. That way, you’ll be able to understand not only your short and long-term objectives but also your competitors and the marketing channels you will want to penetrate. This gives you an idea of how much exactly you need to allocate for every strategy in your campaign, ensuring that each of them is properly funded.

Not Tracking the Success of Your Marketing Campaign

Your work is not done yet when you start releasing your marketing creatives. The thing is, most marketing campaigns last for several months to up to a year, depending on what you want to achieve. When you set your marketing goal, you also set a deadline for which you need to accomplish that goal. For example, increase sales by 50% in a year.

To ensure that you achieve whatever your marketing goal is, you need to track the progress of your campaign. This allows you to determine which of your marketing strategies are performing well and which of them need to be improved. That way, you will not continue spending the marketing budget on strategies that are not helping the success of the campaign.

Do Your Marketing the Right Way

By understanding why your current marketing sucks, you will be able to act accordingly. The thing to always remember about marketing is that it is not a one-size fits all approach. The strategies that work for another company will not always work for you the same way. That’s why you need to come up with a solid marketing plan at the start of your planning process. This way, everything you do moving forward resonates with your objective, allowing you to come up with a marketing campaign that is designed to achieve your desired results.