If you’re just getting started in the marketing world, be sure to avoid these all-too-common mistakes.
Like with everything else, marketers tend to get better with experience. That also implies that when you first start as a marketer, whether you’re a professional in a new role or an entrepreneur trying to make it on your own, you’re at your objective worst.
New marketers are especially prone to certain mistakes, like these five common pitfalls:
- Targeting everyone. Your target audience can’t be “everyone.” If you go too general with your content and advertising, you’ll end up sounding generic and predictable. Instead, you need to target a much smaller, more specific demographic—even if that means a smaller potential audience by the numbers.
- Relying exclusively on market research. Market research is a valuable tool, and it can tell you a lot about buying habits. However, people are unpredictable and circumstances are constantly changing. Data is important, but it can only get you so far. Think outside the box and be willing to adapt when things go awry.
- Succumbing to the latest fads. Just because something has become a buzzword doesn’t mean your company has to be in on it. When hashtags first started making their rounds as an element in social media marketing, business clamored to get a piece of the hashtag pie, despite knowing nothing about hashtags or how they work. You need to learn about a channel or strategy before jumping headfirst into it.
- Mimicking a competitor. It’s good to learn from your competitor’s mistakes and successes, but blindly copying their marketing strategy is a bad idea. You need to differentiate yourself if you want to stand out.
- It’s natural to be nervous about performance when you first get started, but you need to spend money to make money here.
No matter how much you try to prepare, you’re going to make mistakes. Try not to be intimidated by that. Instead, relish in it. Get out there, experiment, see what works and what doesn’t, and learn whenever something doesn’t go exactly as planned. The only way to move forward is through experience.
