What's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video
you're going to learn 10 marketing mistakes that will kill your brand so you can avoid
the pitfalls that most businesses make and stop throwing time effort and money down the drain
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond those
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now if you're watching this video chances are you have your hands on a brand you might have
your hands on multiple brands you might be very experienced in the marketing space or you might
be completely new to it me personally when i got into it and i became completely new to it i
made a lot of mistakes and a lot of these mistakes cost me a lot of effort it cost me a lot of time
and it cost me a lot of money as well so i want to share some of those mistakes with you and share
my experiences with you so hopefully you can avoid those same mistakes and start getting some results
quicker for your brand mistake number one jumping straight into tactics now it seems to me through
my experience and the business owners that i've spoken to that a vast majority of business owners
have this broad idea of what they need to do to bring a brand to market and it goes
something along the lines of this they need to get a brand identity they need to get a website
they need to get a handful of social pages and then they need to start marketing their business
they jump on to the likes of facebook ads and they start learning about business manager and
campaigns and different campaign levels and you know had to get their ads live but the reality
of it is that they're not ready to market their brand yet they don't actually have a
brand yes they have a brand identity system yes they have a website but does that mean
they have a brand no they don't because they don't have a brand strategy they don't have a marketing
strategy either so they don't have the rules set in place as to what they're trying to achieve how
they're going to go about that and they jump into the tactics and when things start to go wrong they
believe it's the tactics that aren't working they believe that facebook ads don't work so
in my experiences a lot of business owners really do have this overarching belief that that's what
you need to do but before you go jumping into the tactics you need to have your ducks in a row you
need to have your brand sorted you need to have a brand strategy and you need to have a marketing
strategy mistake number two broad targeting now i've said it before and i'll say it again
small businesses are not a defined enough target market for you people don't associate with small
business owners i don't associate myself as a small business owner am i a small business
owner yes i am but i don't associate as that i associate as a brand strategist
or a branding specialist and if somebody addresses me if somebody has an ad or a piece of marketing
and they address me in their title or they address me in the beginning of their video i know i can
feel that they're speaking directly to me they're speaking directly to my challenges and i will
take notice of what they're actually saying if they address me as a small business owner or try
and get my attention by addressing me as a small business owner in their title in their headline
in their introduction to their video they're not going to get my attention so you really need to
define who it is that you're trying to target and get very specific so they feel that you're talking
directly to them mistake number three creating content to take a box now let's be honest there
is enough content out there we are not short on content nobody wakes up in the morning
and thinks to themselves god there's not enough content in the world there's plenty of content in
the world in fact there's too much content in the world we do not need more content what we do need
is better content so before you sit down to write a piece of content don't just bash it out for the
sake of it think about your audience think about the challenges that they have and try to create
the best piece of content you can to actually help them mistake number four trying to be
everywhere now there is a segment of the community that believe in the philosophy that you need to be
everywhere as a brand but chances are if you're starting off or you're building a small brand you
will have limited resources and if you try to go out there and be everywhere if you try to create a
facebook page and a linkedin page and an instagram page on a twitter page and snapchat and tick tock
and every single page that you can get your hand on if you try and do facebook ads and google ads
and display ads if you try to be everywhere you're going to dilute your efforts now of course big
brands they have big budgets they have armies of people that can help them to be everywhere and of
course there are benefits to that but starting off as a small business if you try to follow those big
brands you're going to trip yourself up instead focus on where your audience are most engaged
and commit to going all in on where they are most engaged mistake number five undefined positioning
now these days you have to actually mean something to your audience you have to give them a reason if
you simply show up to the marketplace and try and offer to the market what's already being offered
by your competitors if you regurgitate what your competitors are saying and just try to make up
the numbers try to be another presence in the market without doing anything new without offering
your audience an alternative to what's already out there that is the fastest way
to blend in you really need to take the time to define the position that you want to own
in the market that you want to own in the mind of your audience and make sure your messaging backs
that up make sure your messaging communicates that to your audience and give them a reason
to turn towards your brand mistake number six asking too early now today the way we buy the
way we make buying decisions the way we purchase as consumers it has dramatically changed in the
last 20 years 20 years ago brands were able to send out messages and expect those single messages
that single touch point to drive action and get results today that has completely changed it is
very rare today for a brand to be able to send out a single message and get that to drive significant
results today you really need to think about the modern consumer and how they digest information
how they make buying decisions and it's all about giving value and there's a great book by gary vee
called jab jab jab right hook if you haven't read it make sure you read it it's still very relevant
today although it's many years old but it's all about giving that value first showing up to your
audience and showing them that you understand their challenges you understand what they're
going through and showing them that you have the level of expertise to be able to help them
and give them that value give it to them time and again before you ever ask for that transaction
mistake number seven aggressive landing pages now if you do all the hard work and you actually drive
traffic towards your website towards your landing page when somebody gets there it's
very easy to sense that there's a sale going on now of course we all know subconsciously there
is a sale there is going to be some kind of ask but you don't have to set your stall out like
that you don't have to be so aggressive with your massive headlines and your aggressive colors and
your aggressive content let the copy do the work the copy is the most influential part
of your brand and if you take the time to craft a well-defined message well-defined
copy then that is what will do the work for you so tone it back a little bit with your aggressive
aggression on your landing pages and let the copy do the work mistake number eight undefined
messaging now if you've seen my content before you know i'm a big proponent of brand strategy and the
reality of it is that most brands they don't have a strategy they haven't taken the time to define
exactly who their target audience is how they're going to be positioned in the market
the personality that they're going to bring to the market the characteristics that they're going to
use to resonate and then the key messages that they're going to use to shape the mind of their
audience in the way that they want their brand to be seen if you don't have a defined method
for your messaging then going into the market is a big mistake marketing will kill your brand if
you haven't taken the time to define your brand messaging so make sure you take that time and
don't go to the market with undefined messaging mistake number nine ignoring the value of repeat
business and brand loyalty now one of the hardest tasks in branding and in marketing is getting that
attention it is really hard to get that attention because there are so many competitors and you know
this yourself you see these marketing messages all over the place everybody's screaming for your
attention that attention is one of the hardest things to get and once you achieve that attention
you still have a long way to go to convert those prospects into customers and what most businesses
do is they treat their sales as one night stands they think they are only after the sale and once
they get that sale they move on and they keep going they try to get more and more sales but they
don't take the time to realize that that sale that they have just made is far more likely to
buy more things from them than chasing more new business so take the time to really define exactly
how you're going to nurture that sale how you're going to nurture that customer and that client and
make sure that you make the most of them and give them the opportunity to purchase more and
many times more from your brand and mistake number 10 overlooking micro commitments today you need to
seduce your audience you can't just expect to go in for the kills straight away you need to take
the time to nurture them you need to raise that brand awareness you need to show up and allow the
seven to eight touch points that's necessary today for them to take your brand seriously so don't go
in for the kill straight away don't ask for that sale straight away take the time to nurture them
write a blog post send them to that blog post and allow them to digest that send them to a video
allow them to digest that and really take the time to give that value time and again and these
little asks these little micro commitments are far more easier to commit to by a consumer than
a sale than a transaction of some kind so really give them multiple opportunities
to make those micro commitments and each micro commitment will guide them along it will train
your audience to say yes to more things from you and they are all opportunities for you to give
value if you give value every single time you offer a micro commitment when it comes time for
that ask whether it's an email or a sale they'll be far more likely to take you up on your offer
now look on the face of it modern marketing is easy right everybody has access to a laptop or
a phone and all you need today is a facebook ads account and you can get your message in front of
those people quite quickly at a pretty cheap rate as well but it is the nuances in marketing that is
the difference between success and failure and if you don't understand those nuances you are going
to make tons of mistakes those mistakes will cost you time that cost you effort and they'll cost you
money so make sure you take the time to understand the mistakes that you should avoid and the next
time you go to write and add or write a piece of content filter them through those mistakes
make sure you're avoiding them and if you do you will achieve far greater success
much quicker with your marketing but i would love to hand it back over to you i would love to hear
about your biggest mistakes when it comes to marketing what mistakes did you make when it
came to your marketing was there a mistake that was costly in terms of time or effort
or money and did that cost you your business or did that cost you your brand if you have any
challenges at all when it comes to marketing or making those mistakes let me know in the comments
below i'll do my best to answer all of those if you like this video please give it a thumbs up
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to you i'd love to hear you about your challenges about your experiences as i said i'll do my
best to answer all of those until next time bran like a master and i'll see you in the next video