May 17, 2022

Red Flags in Your Marketing Strategy

Red flags are a real hot button issue when it comes to relationship advice, but what about digital marketing advice? Do you know how to spot red flags in your marketing strategy? It can be hard to spot them, no matter how obvious they are, especially when you’ve got rose-tinted lenses. In this blog, we point out some red flags you may not have noticed in your marketing strategy so you can fix them before they become bigger problems.

Red Flag #1: Your Strategy is Built on Other's Content

This is very different to following trends. Reactionary content is great and can be an effective part of any marketing strategy, but if you’re just doing what everyone else is doing, you start to lose yourself. Understanding your own brand personality, audience, mission, vision and values is imperative to your strategy but if your strategy is to just take from everyone else then you’re not taking any of that into account.

Red Flag #2: Interaction isn't a Core Part of it

A key part of building an audience online is interaction. If you don’t interact, they lose interest. You have to show them that you’re as interested in building a relationship as they are.

You could also be making a big mistake by only interacting with trolls or haters; especially if you aren’t interacting with your audience. Engagement is a form of encouragement and you only encourage these behaviours by giving them attention. Alternately, you aren’t encouraging interaction from your genuine audience which means they’re less likely to repeat the behaviour.

Encourage positive engagement and watch your community flourish in no time.

Red Flag #3: Your Ideal Audience Aren't Being Considered

If you don’t know who you’re creating content for, it can end up feeling directionless. What you might find interesting or funny won’t be the same as your audience. It can feel a little unnatural to remove our opinion from the marketing we do, but you aren’t marketing to yourself!

Knowing what your audience wants to see from you, and what they find enjoyable and engaging is key to understanding your marketing strategy and your customers.

Red Flag #4: Your Marketing Objectives Aren't Clearly Defined

What are you trying to achieve with your marketing and how does it tie into the business as a whole? Without having clearly defined objectives, your marketing might suffer from feeling messy.

You also want to ensure that your marketing objectives align with the goals of the business. If you aren’t coordinating your marketing strategy with the general business strategy then your customers are going to have a confusing experience (as marketing is often the first touchpoint) which may result in them having a negative opinion of your business.

Red Flag #5: No Data Showing the Success of the Strategy

If the numbers don’t support it, then perhaps it’s time to reconsider your efforts. If you aren’t getting any ROI or new clients, then you should look at trying to switch things up. In marketing, the numbers guide you, do what yields a good response and avoid anything that might be a time or money sink.

Red Flag #6: Quitting Too Early

If things aren’t going well, it can be easy to jump to extremes. Either you’re ready to give up and walk away or you feel demotivated and don’t want to try something different lest it fails too. Neither of these are particularly helpful or healthy ways to approach your marketing strategy.

If you give up way too soon then you might be sacrificing a good strategy before it reached its prime. Alternatively, if you refuse to change in the hopes that something else will, then you’re just going to get stuck and will never realise your fullest potential.

Marketing is a game of patience and experimentation, trial and error. Just because something doesn’t work straight away, it doesn’t mean it won’t and just because you want something to work, it does not mean it will.

Was this useful? We hope you can take value from this and apply it to your own marketing strategy to create one that's as effective as every other area of your business. Remember: a good marketing strategy reflects your mission, vision and values - what does that mean to you?

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