Marketing Mistakes That Can Scare Away Customers
Marketing is supposed to attract customers, but sometimes using the wrong strategies can have the opposite effect. Today’s consumers are a lot more discerning than in years gone by - they are wary of scams and will look out for red flags before choosing a company to work with. It’s important that you’re not displaying these red flags. Below are just some of the marketing mistakes that could be scaring away customers without you realising.
Low-quality content
While publishing regular content on social media and your site can help you gain exposure and boost your rankings, you need to make sure that this content is actually good quality. Errors such as misspellings, incorrect facts, formatting issues, low resolution images or low quality videos could make you appear amateurish. Know when to outsource someone to help you with your content - consider hiring copywriters to help with blog posts and product descriptions, hire professional photographers to take product photos and team photos, and hire videographers when creating video ads or BTS videos.
Slow-loading webpages
The average internet user sadly isn’t very patient. You could have the best-looking website in the world, but it won’t make any difference if half your visitors are leaving before it’s had a chance to fully load. Webpage loading speed can be a result of many factors including server response time, image optimisation, code structure, redirects, embedded content or number of ads. Ideally, you want webpages to load in less than 3 seconds - which can often mean choosing a fast host, reducing external scripts and compressing images without reducing their quality. A top quality digital marketing company will be able to identify exactly what is slowing your site down so that it can be fixed.
Misaligned demographic targeting
Knowing your audience demographic is key for fine-tuning the tone of your marketing. Young people are going to respond differently to certain types of marketing compared to older people. If most of your customers are older, you probably don’t want to be jumping on TikTok trends or playing modern music in your ads or using Gen Z slang. Instead, think about what appeals to this generation of consumers. If your company attracts customers of different backgrounds, consider the fact that you can target different ads at different platforms, as well as using settings to filter by age or location or gender. One-size-fits-all marketing rarely works.
Sensationalist language
Sensationalist language grabs people’s attention - but it doesn’t necessarily convert customers. In fact, it can come off as annoying and some of us may even associate it with scams. This includes clickbaity titles (‘you won’t believe what happens next…’), extreme hyperbole (‘the #1 product on the planet!’) and fearmongering (‘act now or miss out forever’). Sometimes it’s okay to dabble in this language, but overusing it will put off many customers by making you seem false.
Aggressive upselling
Upselling is a tactic that can be successfully used to make customers spend more than they intended. However, if you upsell too aggressively, you’ll put off customers who had a certain budget in mind. Avoid website checkout processes with pages of additional extras or additional in-person sales pitches if a customer is already on board. If certain extra costs are essential, be honest about these upfront and include them in the initial price.