5 Marketing Mistakes I KNOW You’re Making

1. You think you have a strong brand
   Where do I start with branding? God, everyone talks about it but very few people get it.
   I was talking to a banker who said his bank's brand was one of its biggest strengths. Interesting point when you realise that his bank is ranked 3^rd or 4^th on just about every measure of market share in just about every segment. Smart guy, really smart, but this was a really dumb comment. This banker could not even tell me what made his brand different to the others, apart from the fact it was blue and the other major banks weren't. THIS BRAND IS NOT A STRENGTH – IT IS A WEAKNESS. A prominent brand does not mean a strong brand. It needs to differentiate from the competition and it needs to represent your company properly! If you are directly competing with three other major industry players, and they all have superior market share and your brand does not represent any type of advantage over them, your brand is a weak one.
   
    Boost Juice is one of the best brands I know of. It takes an everyday product (fruit juice) and slaps a brand on it that makes the drink worth more and draws in additional customers that didn't even think of buying fruit juice before they saw people walking around with Boost cups. Boost present themselves as high energy, fit, healthy and young. And you know what? It is a great representation of the company because they hire fit, healthy, young people with great upbeat personalities. The brand is a perfect reflection and is very strong. Compare this to just about any insurance company that claims to make the life easy for you, or the Optus slogan "Joy without Limits" and animals plastered all over the place. If you have ever had to call up Optus, especially if you're trying to bundle more than one service with another, you'll quickly realise there is a very real limit to the available Joy from this company. And the animals are supposed to make it all cool and fun, but with pathetic customer service the animal branding just looks like a gimmick, because it is. Forget your damn animals and give me some service!
   
    
2. You know your own company better than you know your customers and competitors
   That's right, knowing your company better than you know customers and competitors is a fundamental weakness. Most industries are in a state of maturity or increased competition which means the customer has the power of choice and the competition is doing whatever it can to chew you out of the profits you are working towards. Use every single piece of market sensing ability your entire company has to get a feel for what is happening out there.
   
    You need to know your customers, how old they are, what they like to do with their time, why they like your product, why they don't like it, what they eat for lunch, what position they hold in their respective companies, their geographic location, their level of education, what cars they drive, what movies they like, EVERYTHING. This should be a starting point in any marketing plan. You need to get to know the people who make it an industry, the people who demand the products and service..
   
    And the same goes for competitors, you need to know their campaigns, you need to know what they are working on next, what they have worked on, what is happening in their corporate structure, which ad agencies they use, which business functions are outsourced, how they employ their staff (they might be trying to take people from your company!) and most importantly: the customer experience that they provide. All of this information is fundamentally important to making good marketing decisions and putting your time and effort towards appropriate activities. People think chess is a strategic game but that is crap because your opponent is making all his moves right in front of your face, it's got nothing on the real world. There is a reason why only the socially retarded excel at this game.
   
    
3. You don't amaze me
   I actually used this line to break-up with a girl once. It wasn't my finest moment, and sure, she was hurt, but what am I supposed to do? Wait for it to improve? Kill time and hope that the experience I want comes along? I wasn't prepared to do that and I can guarantee that your customer aren't either. It is pretty simple, really. If you don't make me say 'wow' then why should I bother with you? Are you actually trying to win my money with your product and your service? Or are you just trying to lure me in with false-hope intro offers that then lead to the same thing that everyone else is providing. Note – the suggestion here isn't that you need to redesign your entire product range. Service is a great divider in an industry. There are not many companies out there that make you sit back and go "wow, that was great service!" Singapore airlines is a standout in this area for me. They do have superior planes as well but the service they provide has always made me sit back and say "wow, why would I even bother with anyone else?".
   
    
4. You Don't Really Know Why You are Doing it
   It used to be all about getting a website. Everyone was in a mad rush to put one up, but nobody really thought about what a website was for. The same thing is now happening with social media, iPhone apps and no doubt there will be another wave of crap that everyone else jumps onto. The reality is that these forms of communication represent a new product. Some do it well, some don't, but you always need to know WHY you're doing it! If the answer is any of the following:

• Our competitor is doing it
• We've always done it that way
• The boss said we need one so let's get to it

Then you're being pathetic. If ALL of your competitors are doing it and it is costing you customers,then that is a good reason. If you've always done it that way and you can show that it helps retain customers or get new ones, then that is a good reason. If you don't have the balls to question the boss or at least understand his/her motives then your career has just about peaked. The great advances in websites were the following: the ability to order online, the ability to gather useful market information, the ability to communicate regularly with customers. Note, advertising revenue is NOT a great advancement of websites. It was the online application of an offline practice and it has never been done well.

iPhone apps are still a very new thing and nobody seems to know what to make of it. They are basically text dumps or GPS units, or a combination of the two at the moment. Oh yeah, and the games, let's not forget those. Dominos Pizza led the pack in terms of creating an app in which you can order pizza and have it delivered. They did it to increase convenience for their customers. They could have just "made an app" which was a list of pizzas and toppings. They could have made a game where you've got limited time to make pizzas before angry customers die of hunger, but they actually did something useful which had a strong purpose. See the difference!!! To see what I'm talking about get a load of the Save the Children iPhone app. Keep in mind that Save the Children is a non-profit that aims to increase awareness of human (children's)rights and raise cash. This app is a cheap gimmick that does neither, and anyone who has downloaded it has most likely deleted it or forgotten about it by now. The same mindset is required for product development, service offerings, trade shows (do you REALLY think they help?), advertising campaigns, restaffing, outsourcing – YOU NEED TO KNOW WHY YOU ARE DOING IT.

5. You are letting the Marketing department do all the marketing. This is perhaps the biggest mistake. The best thing in the world is momentum. If the marketing department is working against other departments (and most companies have sales and marketing diametrically opposed to each other) then there is a hell of a lot of wasted energy and effort, and where does that get you? Your accounts team, your warehouse guys, your engineers, IT staff, customer service and of course, your sales and marketing teams are all capable of marketing. You don't want everyone trying to be a salesman, that can be embarrassing, so forget about delivering incentives to all corners of the business on the basis of sales. Just make sure everyone is educated on how to treat customers and make sure everyone understands the products and services to a level where they can have a reasonable discussion with a potential customer.