There can be a lot to learn from mistakes made by other marketers, I learn something every day just by observing. Come on people…this is not rocket science!
Of the three marketing mistakes (in my opinion) I will share with you, one came from a trip to Florida. I want you to imagine you own a Starbucks located inside a large hotel that caters to seminars and conventions. There is a huge three day seminar with over 800 people happening only feet away from your establishment. These people are there from 6:30 am to about 10:00 pm for two of the three days. Naturally you take into consideration that this crowd will need ample supplies of goodies and caffeine to fuel their way through the day. So what do you do with this opportunity? Close up shop at 2:00 pm! These seminars and conventions are booked several months in advance. Would it not make sense to know when a thirsty crowd will be coming and prepare for it? Would you not want to offer some form of premium so that most of the crowd will come to you at least once during the day? I found them only because I was looking for a secondary washroom.
Another questionable marketing incident happened earlier this year. In the mail I received a calendar from a service provider I met a few years ago. While I appreciate the calendar as a promotional tool I question the wisdom of sending it to me at the end of January. My needs for a calendar for 2010 have long since been taken care of. Sending it late tells me that it was not organized to go out before the new year began. Unfortunately the sender lost the opportunity to make a good impression by providing me with a useful tool. Instead I now have to choose between finding yet another place to hang a calendar or pitch it in the dumpster. Neither will positively affect his ROI on his marketing dollar.
The third marketing mistake arrived via email just last week. The marketer was trying to increase my urge to buy using a combination of social proof and fear of loss. Unfortunately the result was a strange message. He attempted to amp up my interest by saying that because there was an unprecedented interest in his program that he was throwing in another thousand dollars in bonuses. That flies right in the face of the law of supply and demand. Why would you need to give me more for the same price if there is already a crowd of eager customers ahead of me for a limited number of product? In his case it would have paid to have someone else read over the marketing piece before it went out.
Each of these mistakes was a result of not having an effective marketing strategy to guide them. Do you have your marketing strategy in place for 2010? Is it designed to maximize your marketing opportunities? Or are planning to make it up as you go along?
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