I thought this was a great article on marketing mistakes. The title indicates it’s for Retail, but experience tells me this applies to other industries, too. Most of all, if you have a marketing strategy planned and carried out and continuously adjusted over time, you will get the best results.

Marketing Mistake Profit Finder Pro Software 1-800-972-6952Are You Making These 7 Retail Marketing Mistakes?

by Bob Negen

As an independent retail store owner you have to wear LOTS of hats – including Chief Marketing Officer.  Check to see if you might be making one of these common Retail Marketing Mistakes…

#1. Your Marketing is “All About Me”

If had to pick the most common (and most deadly) retail marketing mistake, this would be it. Everyone thinks that their products, their services, their promotions, and their store are far more fascinating than they really are. It’s only natural. To you, the most important thing in the world is – you!

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your customers don’t really care that much about you, or your store, or your products.  Like you, what they care most about is themselves.

The trick for you as a retail marketer is to stop thinking about what you offer and start focusing on what your customer wants.  It’s the only way to build the kind of customer relationships that engender real trust, strong loyalty, and repeat business.

If most of your outbound communication (emails, facebook posts, postcards, newspaper ads, etc.) is about your products, your services, your promotions, or your store and not about what’s interesting, helpful, useful, beneficial, or entertaining for your customer, then you are making this marketing mistake.

#2. You Don’t Track Your Results

If you don’t track the results of your marketing efforts it’s impossible to tell if they are successful, or to what degree they are successful .

Of course, tracking your results takes forethought and planning. (See Retail Marketing Mistake #7!)

You have to be very clear about what your primary goals are for each of your marketing efforts – generate sales? attract new customers? re-activate inactive customers? build relationships?  What you hope to achieve affects the way you track your results and how you judge your success.

Some marketing results are easy to track, some are a bit more complicated, but it’s always worth it. With marketing (as with almost every area of business), if you can measure it, you can manage it.

#3. You’re a “One and Done” Marketer

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a great conversation with a retailer who’s super excited to share a major marketing success and when I ask them, “So, when is the next one scheduled for?” they look at my like I have three heads.

Most of them honestly hadn’t considered repeating their successful event!

Or here’s what used to happen to me when I owned the Mackinaw Kite Co… We’d forget from year to year, month to month what we’d done and what worked. I’d find myself scratching my chin and saying, “Yeah, now I remember that thing we did last year. That was really great. Huh, wonder why we didn’t do that again this year?”

One and done doesn’t cut it. You spend too much time and effort getting your marketing right to only do something one time. If it is successful keep on doing it again, and again, and again.

(To read the full article, click here…)


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