Marketing: 8 Common Marketing Mistakes

8 Common Marketing Mistakes

Written by Charlie Cook

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Web Sites that Don't Move Prospects to Action Many small business owners direct prospects to a web site where they have more extensive content covering available services and products. I constantly get calls from people who have been successful at attracting prospects to their web site, but generate few sales.

Once prospects get to your web site make sure repparttar content and visual organization moves them to take repparttar 120610 action you want them to. Whether it is providing them with ample opportunities to fill in your service inquiry form, or including a subset of your product catalog in your web page navigation bars, help prospects move to client and customer status.

Lack of Follow Up Sometimes making a sale requires sending a note or picking up repparttar 120611 phone and calling your prospects. If you have an effective lead generation strategy, prospects will provide you with their contact information and repparttar 120612 problem they want solved. Use repparttar 120613 web, email, and repparttar 120614 phone to follow up and close repparttar 120615 sale.

Lack of Tracking If you are making more from your advertising than you are spending, you're ahead. Frequently small business owners can't tell you which of their efforts helped bring in repparttar 120616 business. Track each of your ad campaigns and you'll know where to spend your money in repparttar 120617 future, what to modify and what to eliminate.

- Do you know how many sales and how much money you made as a result of each of your advertising campaigns?

- Are you making any of repparttar 120618 above common marketing mistakes?

- What elements of your marketing should you change?

Put your marketing house in order. Fix your strategy and your materials. If you don't know what to change or how to change it, use experts to help you with strategy, copyrighting, design, PR, and media placement.

Avoid these common marketing mistakes and you'll find ore people contacting you about your products and services and that your making more than your spending on your advertising.

The author, Charlie Cook, helps independent professionals and small business owners attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Guide and the 'More Business' newsletter, full of practical tips you can use at http://www.charliecook.net

What’s Your Identity?

Written by Claire Cunningham

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2)COMPANY LOGO – Have you identified a distinctive typeface? Do you have a symbol? Do you need one? Have you had your logo produced professionally? Have you identified logo color(s)? Do you use all of this consistently? 3)TAG LINE – Do you need one? Do you have one? Does it clearly describe your company’s unique position? Is it customer benefit oriented? Do you use it consistently? 4)PRODUCT NAMES – Do you have them? Do they follow a pattern? Do they make sense with your company name?

If you answered “No” or “Don’t know” to any of these questions or if you’re thinking about changing your name, logo or tag line, consult a marketing communications professional with experience in company identity issues. Investment of time and money up front will yield benefits in repparttar long run.

Claire Cunningham, president of Clairvoyant Communications, Inc., has 20+ years’ experience developing and implementing successful business-to-business marketing and communications programs. Sign up for Claire’s monthly newsletter, Communique, at www.clairvoyantcommunications.com Claire can be reached at 763-479-3499 or e-mail to claire@claircomm.com

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