marketing screams

We all make mistakes, and no matter how careful we are, they are always going to happen. But if we are spending money to portray our image, here are some tips on what not to do.

Contact information – If you forget to provide your contact information, you’ll need to have a brilliant campaign to get your potential customer to open the Yellow Pages to find your contacts. According to the consultancy BIA Kelsey, 60% of small and medium-sized businesses do not display their phone numbers on their websites. Display the phone number and email in a prominent location accessible from or on the home page.

I live in Belgium and it was driving me crazy trying to find the phone numbers on the websites of the big utility and phone companies. If I can avoid calling and waiting on the line for a real person to speak, any day I prefer to solve my problems with a few lines on the contact pages of websites. Sometimes you have to talk to someone and I literally have to open the yellow pages to find a phone number!

Too complicated – Your marketing must be able to deliver an understandable message to potential customers. kiss kpeep Yoyou Ssimple, Sdumb. Show why your product is great, how to buy it, and why it’s the best on the market. To give you an example, I recently saw a Google ad for a fancy email tool that, from the 10 words in the ad, looked like it might be relevant to my business. But I didn’t understand what you were doing from your website. It took them 30 minutes to explain it to me over the phone.

everyone is doing it – not a good reason for you to do it. It used to be Flash technology, then a marketing guru says he needs an informational video, so he makes one too. What works for your competitor may not necessarily work for you. Think twice before spending to keep up with the Joneses.

Keep everything up to date – It’s true, some online retailers do not accept credit cards, only checks or cash. Others have the address of their old office that they moved from a few years ago. A website for a software company featured two members of their support team who had left 12 months earlier. Do not use old company letterheads.

The real world – do not give up your print and other media advertising. People are still exposed to regular billboards, brochures and magazine ads and without them your image could be lost.

marketing comes 1^street – MISTAKEN. Your products or services come first. If your customers are disappointed, they will tell other potential customers, no matter how good the marketing is. It costs seven times more to bring back disappointed customers than it does to retain one.