In the first part of this mini-series of articles, I gave my readers five mistakes to avoid when running your product marketing campaign and here I complete my list of the top, or more appropriately bottom, five.
Micro-Niching Your Product
We all know that drilling down in a crowded niche can usually bring great results, although having too small a customer base can be totally unproductive for any business unless the overall market is known to be inherently small, but the rewards are great.
One example of this might be the second hand, millionaire yacht market at the top end where there may only be ten to twelve customers worldwide, but where the commissions you can earn may be in the tens of thousands of pounds.
If your research for your product indicates that your customer base is small then you have two options:
- Go back up to a level where the customer base might be sufficient to sustain your product sales.
- Change your product to one that addresses a bigger audience.
No marketing once you’re selling
Any good marketing campaign is a consistent exercise so once you are making sales you should continue to promote and market your product as effectively as you did in the pre-launch phase. Yes, change the campaign and possibly the focus, but never stop it!
If you are generating sales then you have money to continue the marketing from the profits and not from the bank so look to possibly out-source some other areas of the business now so you can concentrate on the sales and marketing side.
Selling to the Wrong Audience
We spoke in the first article about knowing your customer, but this is looking at this from a different perspective. Although your research might have shown that your product or service would benefit a certain section of the community, if the cost is outside their range then wasting time and effort in promoting to them is fruitless!
Chasing New Customers To The Detriment of your existing customer base
Any marketing guru will tell you it costs much more to develop a new customer than to retain your current ones so you must never disregard your existing customer base as you have already built the trust factor with them and they are probably more responsive to up-sells and new products than a customer who is buying from you for the first time!
Keep these on board with regular updates, advance notice of new products and special discounts for loyalty as these are all appreciated and they will be your best ambassadors in the market place.
Being Haphazard In Following Up new Leads
When you get a new lead or customer, you need to have a process in place that everyone follows in dealing with a new enquiry. Nothing is more frustrating when dealing with a new company than thinking your enquiry is not valued.
OK they might not buy from you this time, but they might next time and as long as they are dealt with in a professional manner and followed up in a timely fashion, then they will see you for an honest and trustworthy supplier which will make you more acceptable to them when you make another pitch.
So that is the end of my two articles on marketing mistakes to avoid and if you missed the first part, click here How To Avoid The Most Common Marketing Mistakes and you will be taken straight there.
Have you made these types of mistakes? Have you any others that I’ve missed? I’d love to know so please add your comment below!
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