Quite often, I hear businesses claim that “marketing didn’t really work for them”. It’s not that “marketing didn’t work for you”, you didn’t do the right marketing. Whenever I work with new clients, I start by addressing the issues, objectives or mindsets they have when it comes to social media.
In this blog, I want to talk about the 5 key reasons your marketing may ‘not be working’ for you. With most businesses, it’s often a combination, but hopefully this can help pinpoint a few areas of improvement, and help with suggestions on moving forward.

Here we go:

1. Content

Content is the variable of success for any marketing strategy, and definitely the most important thing I address with any new client. When putting your brand out to the world, you are trying to communicating with an audience, and so the way you do that is crucial. Shoddy low budget videos might not give the best impression, but on the same hand, breaking the bank to produce something totally irrelevant is just as stupid. The most important thing is that your content should provide a level of value to the consumer, giving them a reason to follow your social pages and start paying attention to you.

If you want to promote your brand through content, make sure you check out a recent blog I shared: 3 Content Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business.

2. Prioritising Sales

Many businesses see their marketing fall flat when they prioritise sales over absolutely everything. This is when their marketing ‘strategy’ only revolves around selling. There’s actually not much strategy behind it at all; every post and tweet is a link to their product page and their content provides no real value to their audience.

This gives no reason for any consumer to follow you, or pay attention. It leaves the opportunity for your competitors to build a better relationship and take the business for themselves. Instead, businesses should prioritise building their brand. Provide value and build an audience of people that have ‘bought in’ to your business – that way, the sales come naturally.
Take an honest look at your social media posts over the last 90 days. How much value do you actually provide to someone other than yourself? Treat the word ‘brand’ as ‘reputation’ or ‘word of mouth’. Do you want to become a business that cares about its customers, or just its profits?

3. Too many Excel sheets!

In short, this point comes down to a severe lack of patience I see from many businesses. They expect one post will be a game-changer and are disappointed when nothing happens. Marketing takes time. Social media takes time. People don’t discover you overnight. A similar side to that comes reporting… I hate reporting. It’s one of the first things I tell my clients and the smaller businesses usually agree. I do understand the need for certain reports; as businesses grow and management tiers are introduced, more reporting tends to come naturally as you have more people overlooking, as appose to working ‘hands on’.

Social media is one of those things you just have to be ‘hands on’ with. Content isn’t something that passively creates itself. And as for knowing ‘how well’ things are doing, you should be finding that out through your own two thumbs – checking in on your posts, replying to comments and engaging with your audience. Numbers at the end of a spreadsheet every month will never give the full picture. We are too busy trying to link our ‘meet the team’ video with sales objectives and it simply doesn’t work. Don’t look for the instant gratification and make sure your content strategy actually maps to your ambitions. Expecting results by Friday is a fundamental flaw in most businesses, and their lack of patience lets them down.

Sometimes, their marketing has actually done wonders – yet they are just looking at the wrong data, or have the wrong agenda. This is something very important, and worth considering.

4. Money

The money you spend in marketing comes down to two main things – how much you are spending, and what you are spending it on. No matter what your budget, it should be spent wisely. Make sure you are actively trying new things and paying attention to what is working in the very moment you’re operating. Never rely on what ‘used to work’, because the internet, and therefore the world, is always evolving.

At the time of writing this blog, Facebook and Instagram’s advertising platforms are hugely underpriced. For the best part of a decade, they have been the ultimate advertising bargain, yet businesses are still trying to ‘figure it out’. If you are yet to run a Facebook or Instagram ad, now is the time to do so.

They allow us to target our audience on an almost-individual basis, reducing our cost of advertising. Previously, we had to blow our marketing budgets on TV, press and radio with the aim of reaching EVERYONE, just to reach those that mattered. It was a numbers game and in a certain sense, down to chance. Be smart about where you put your money, and don’t be afraid to spend it. Too many businesses hold back worrying about the potential loss, but to me, missing the potential upside is way scarier!

5. Product

If you made it this far through the blog and thought that none of the above have been an issue, but still think your marketing is failing – I’ll leave you with this – your product is the issue.

Now that’s a little harsh, and without full context, no one can really make that call. However, advertising any product requires a great deal of self awareness and honesty – you could do all the marketing in the world but if your product holds no value or purpose, the market itself will be the first to let you know. Maybe your competition is too strong, you need improve quality, reduce your price or perhaps it just isn’t the right ‘time’. These are all important things to consider, and whilst you should always be optimistic and positive about your product, don’t let it border delusion.

You might be glad to know that’s the end of this blog! This was a super detailed one but hopefully provides you with plenty of value, and was a big help with regards to your own marketing strategy. If you any questions, or would like some help and ideas with your marketing, then please feel free to give me a shout! Drop me an email – David@WinterMediaUK.com