6 reasons your current marketing strategy isn't working
As you might expect, I get a lot of queries about marketing strategies. The most common is why a particular plan is not working for an individual or business.
Of course, this a big question, much along the lines of how long is a piece of string?
Most failing marketing strategies tend to have common problems associated with them, however. Here are my 6 reasons your current marketing strategy isn't working:
1. Your marketing strategy is not coherent
By coherent, I mean it doesn’t have joined-up thinking. All parts of your marketing strategy should fit together like a glove and each part needs to have a specific purpose and each part should compliment others.
You need to have a firm goal for what you want your marketing to achieve:
- Do you want to generate more leads?
- Build your brand visibility?
- Create a promotion?
- Support customers, who have bought your product or hired your service?
👉 Check out my quick guide on the 6 essential elements your marketing strategy needs
2. You’re not targeting the right audience
Many small and medium-sized businesses use a scattergun approach when it comes to reaching out to demographics. That’s often because they haven’t considered who their product or service is for.
If your marketing isn’t working it could simply be that you are focused on trying to sell to the wrong people. Do some research if you haven’t yet nailed your audience down.
Once you identify where you can hook a captive audience, start looking at where they hang out and how you can reach them with your website content, landing pages, social media platforms, and PPC. Tailor your message and your approach to them, don’t just opt for a generic sales pitch.
3. You’re not meeting customer needs
“The most common reason small businesses fail is that the market simply doesn’t need their products or services.”
If your marketing isn’t working it could be down to this simple problem. It might be time to cut and run if there simply isn’t a market there.
If there is, you may not be providing the content and the engagement that your customer is looking for...
Are you answering their questions?
Solving their problems?
Meeting their needs?
It’s time to take a step back and do the old ‘look at the world’ from your customer’s point of view approach. The best way to do this is to convert your product or service features into benefits.
Features are great but they don’t sell products or services. What benefits do is solve a problem or meet someone’s needs. That’s the key to providing what your customers need right now.
4. Your brand sucks
Maybe I’m being a little harsh. Small and medium-sized businesses, however, can struggle with developing a brand identity. In short, they aren’t memorable and they don’t build that lasting connection with their audience.
Branding can be difficult to get right but it plays an essential role that underpins your marketing activities. Take time to work on it.
👉 Check out my blog on how to uncover your brand story
5. You’re pushing, not engaging on social media
I see so many businesses simply using their social media accounts to simply push products or services. Which is desperately sad... disengaging... and the complete opposite as to why social media exists!
It ain't social media - if you ain't being social!
Social media isn’t about selling, it’s about engagement. This goes hand in hand with your brand development and it’s all about building relationships with your audience.
That doesn’t mean social media shouldn’t help you achieve your marketing objectives. How you do it, however, is more nuanced.
6. You’re not measuring and reacting
Finally, no marketing strategy ever succeeded without good metrics. What I find is that many businesses try different approaches like blogging or pay-per-click but don’t use the many engagement measurement tools to monitor progress.
These tools are free and can make a big difference. Learn how to use marketing metrics, what they mean, and how they can inform your choice of activity to bring in more customers.
In short, if you don’t know how your marketing is performing, you can’t make profitable changes to your strategy.
I hope you have found this article useful. If you wish to receive more marketing goodness like this, don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter – subscribe here
If you're not sure where to start with your marketing plan - Download my free guide here: ‘How to create your Marketing Masterplan Blueprint’
If you need a fresh pair of eyes and ears’ to have a closer look at how you market and grow your business, let’s talk/meet for an informal chat – message me or email: [email protected]