Marketing is a very important part of business. Without it, how would anyone know who you are and what you have to offer? You may have a strong brand name to rely which means you don’t need to market, however how did these brands become so strong in the first place? The strength of these brands yields return, and the key to the brand is from marketing.

I see, on a daily basis, some criminal marketing decisions. There are thousands of small mistakes that people make when it comes to marketing, particularly online, however from a strategic point of view there are some even bigger faux pas.

1. Mismatch between offline and online promotions:
When you are marketing in many different areas it is important to be consistent across the board in what you offer and what you promote. I saw at the weekend a large flights company promoting discount savings on flights to the US and Canada in the Daily Mail. Superb! So I went online to find out more and book – 5 minutes later I was halted in my tracks. Nowhere on the search engines do they display adverts mirroring this offer and no where on the site do they offer it either! If you ran a company and knew that 42% of newspaper adverts trigger an internet search, would this be something that you would change?!

2. Disproportionate investment into offline and online media
When I last read these stats at the beginning of 2007 the average online budget was 5% of the overall company marketing budget. Search engines pull in huge volumes of interest. 47% of magazine ads, 43% of TV ads, and 42% of Newspaper ads trigger an internet search. How can you make the most out of this with only 5% of your annual marketing budget? Branding campaigns and offline advertising really drive interest through the internet. To capture this, online marketing needs to be in place.

3. Disproportionate investment into search marketing
Ever got caught in the trap of focusing too much on PPC? Ever wondered how to save money on it but yet get better results? Click Consult have been a dedicated PPC management company since 2003 however since March 2007 we have been doing SEO. Now that we are prominent on the first page of Google for our generic search terms we have been able to cut back our marketing efforts on PPC saving us a fortune, whilst still receiving the same volume of enquiries. Many advertisers get caught in the PPC trap and not looking at the searchers who completely ignore the PPC listings. Drive the volume with SEO, target the specifics and long tail terms with an effective PPC strategy. Never neglect search marketing, as this is where you are going to get the most direct response.

4. No branding campaigns
The average person sees 4 adverts per minute. We don’t realise it but this advertising has a massive impact on branding. How many times do you see the Adidas logo? You will probably see it twice as many times as you realise. The branding is very subconscious yet very effective.
Some branding can also be very direct and very calculated, like TV advertising. The Superbowl is watched by 40% of the US population, yet 50% watch it just for the adverts! This is because the adverts are the best adverts around and are very entertaining, yet this is a great bit of branding for the companies that can afford $2.6 million for 30 second slot!

5. Website and Analytics:
More and more, the web is the hub of marketing. Offline marketing is cultivating online responses and it is important that the Website can cope. Things to look out for are the quality of the hosting, the website branding, the website functionality, the payment or enquiry options need to be the best around, and you need to understand your traffic stats. Analytics is a very important tool to collect data and decipher what turns people on or off. 82% of businesses don’t know what analytics is – the sooner they do, the better.

In today’s society, people are complaining about the volume of advertising that they receive – they just don’t like it! Why? Because most aren’t relevant to them. Marketing departments need to become more efficient.

Are there any other points that I have missed? Please comment below.

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