Here at Purely HQ, we are often stunned to hear some of the horror stories from clients about how much money they have previously spent on marketing to find they do not get ANY results from it. It's simply criminal. But, fear not business owners, Purely Personal Marketing are here to fight the top five crimes against marketing so you can stop wasting money and you CAN start to see results.
Crime Number 1
Investing a large part of your budget on a fancy logo.
You have taken the leap and set up a business, go you! And the first crime against marketing you can make? Spending all your money on a logo. Many people think that a logo is what is going to make their business ‘official’ and ‘professional’ and with a good expensive logo the clients will be bashing down the door to use you. You may end up finding this not to be true…. That said, a logo is important, you should think about the colours and other aesthetics and how they portray your business, but other than that a logo alone will not get you, clients. When you do come to pay top bucks to a designer, make sure you research what you want and make sure you give your brief to the designer because the hourly rate for design will quickly rack up if you are indecisive.
Ultimately, people will use your company if the service or product is professional and then, when you have a bit more revenue behind you, perhaps invest in some fancy branding and a new logo. There is no crime in reinventing your image later down the line. We did.
Crime Number 2
Spending all your money on a website.
Similarly, to the logo fiasco, many new business owners automatically think they NEED a website to operate. For an e-commerce business, this could almost be true (if there weren't other media platforms that can be used to sell from) but ok, in that circumstance a website is important. However, building a website that is going to generate all your leads is a time consuming and expensive business because no one is going to just magically come across it one day and start using your company. A lot of start-ups plough a massive chunk of their marketing budget into an all-singing all-dancing website without realising what a website can really do, or not do. Use other forms of marketing to build a loyal customer base and then invest in a much better and functional website later down the line.
Crime Number 3
Assuming a social media marketer will work, and not understanding how social media marketing does work.
A lot of business owners don’t understand how social media marketing works. Your mate down the pub helped your business come to fruition with the stellar advice “You should start a Facebook page” and low and behold you pick up the phone and instruct us to manage your new account. That’s absolutely fine, but without much understanding about what social media marketing will do for your business, you are going to (unfairly) be disappointed. Lots of our clients have moved to us from other agencies, and most commonly it’s because they didn’t feel understood. To be successful, a social media manager has to get inside your business and understand it, they have to sound like you and appeal to your clientele or your social media is going to feel a lot it's walking around in flip-flops in the winter (just wrong) or seeing your dad in a speedo (just awkward). A lot of social media marketing agencies just push generic campaigns for any business and will not take the time to get to know you and your business.
Crime Number 4
Reckless use of the boost button.
The simplicity of paid ads lures in many an unsuspecting business owner, but with no experience with using them, you will probably be throwing money away. What are you aiming to do with your ads? Many people want to drive traffic to their website. But hang on, didn't we talk about this?
If you are going to invest in hiring someone to manage ads for you, please make sure you have a strong conversion plan in place for when you get those clicks.
Crime number 5
Starting at the start.
Before implementing a marketing plan, you need to work backwards. A lot of clients are keen to start marketing their business, but they haven't given any thought as to where they want to end up, or what they want to achieve from it. How else can you evaluate whether it's working? As a business owner, you need to establish the end goal and make that clear with your digital marketing team so that they can put the right campaigns in place for you.
Get in touch with Purely Personal Marketing for more information on how our expertise and creativeness can help your business reach more customers.
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