Over the last few days, I have been observing some huge online marketing blunders by a lot of people. Sometimes, I can’t believe some of the things that I see when I am looking around the web. Just so that I can save you from looking like some of these other fools that I see online, I am going to share with you the biggest marketing blunders that I see online. Now, if you make just one marketing blunder listed here, then please, stop and think about what you are doing.
Now, The Top 5 Marketing Blunders to Avoid Online:
5. Over Analyzing Competition
I spend a lot of time helping new marketers on forums, through emails, and pretty much everywhere that I go online. One of the biggest marketing blunders that I see is people spending so much time analyzing the competition, and worrying about whether or not they will succeed that they never do anything.
Now, knowing what your competition is doing is important. It is a great way for you to know what you are doing wrong. However, too much analyzing leads to analysis paralysis. Take a deep breath and plunge in. You will never really know if something will work until you try it for yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. Try it for yourself, and see if you can do it.
4. Over Promotion
I see this on everywhere online, especially on the social networks. This doesn’t mean don’t promote. It means provide valuable advice first. I am more willing to consider buying a product or service from someone who took the time to give me some free advice first.
Your “free report” that is nothing more than an advertisement for a product that I don’t want does nothing to help me. If you are going to run an email list,send out informative emails instead of just promoting products. Otherwise, I will unsubscribe faster than you can blink.
If you are on Facebook or Twitter then post useful tips and advice. Socialize and ask questions. Don’t just post advertisements, and links all day.
3. Excessive adds
Now, this could have been lumped in with the other one, but it gets its own category. This is a common marketing blunder, which I atribute to the many fake marketing experts selling crap ebooks.There are actually products for sell teaching people to build sites this way.
I had someone ask me to review his site, and was offended when I told him that it was total trash and he needed to go build a website. I told him to write some articles on a specific topic, and post them on his site. His answer was that he couldn’t write them. So, I offered my writing services. He refused, and broke contact. Oh well its his loss. In a few months he will be complaining that this make money online stuff is nothing but a scam because he built a crappy site.
You see, his site had no niche, and literally no content. He built a horrible affiliate marketing website that was literally nothing but about 20 banner ads. There wasn’t even any connection to the ads he had. There were banners for make money products, dating books, and even World of Warcraft Strategy guides, all on a one page site.
This wasn’t so much a marketing blunder as a train wreck. And it is a common hurdle for marketing newbies to get over.
I was stuck between being pissed at seeing that crap, and laughing my butt off that he thought this site was actually valuable to anyone foolish enough to land on it. Since he couldn’t even be bothered to write an article for the page, I have no idea how he planned to promote it and get traffic. Building an affiliate marketing business is possible, but not with that crap on your site.
IF you can’t research and write at least 20-30 articles, or pay someone to do it for you, go get a job, and quit wasting your time here. Content is what makes or breaks a website. If you can’t create the content, or hire an article writing service, then you need to quit now.
2. Lack of promotion
This one always makes me laugh, but you would be surprised at how many people do it. I was answering emails the other day, and I had one from a frustrated newbie that I met in a forum that we both frequent. He was struggling because nobody was coming to his site. He had a few visitors, but that was it.
So, I asked him how many links he had built, and where he was posting them. His response almost made me cry. He hadn’t done any, in over 3 months, and wondered why nobody was coming to his site. Now, this is just one example, but I see it every day.
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!
If you don’t do anything to let people know your website exists, they can’t find it. The best websites online are not the ones with the best content. They are the ones that get promoted the most.
Look at Ezine Articles. 80% of the articles in that directory are TRASH. They are the most worthless drivel you will ever read. However, they are the biggest directory online. This is not because of the quality of their information, but because people know they are there.
That is called marketing, and that is what we do here. You are going to try to market a product with your site, but the first thing that you have to sell is your own site. Not for cash, but for a click on a link. If you don’t have links, or they are not where your potential customers can find you, then your site is dead before you even get started.
Ok, so now the wait is over, the biggest, most terrifying marketing blunder that you can make online is…..
#1 Marketing Blunder: Relying on one site for all your traffic
How many times do you have to lose all of your traffic because Google makes a change before you get this one? This is probably the most common of all the marketing blunders that I see.
There are so many great places to get traffic. you can link up with bloggers, and get guest posts. You can post to social sites, build some relationships, and gain the trust of people before sending them on to your site, you can join a bookmarking community, or a forum within your niche. These are just a few places that you can get a lot of great traffic.
I have said this a lot, especially since the latest Google update, but the saying is still valid
“DONT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET!”
Did I shout it loud enough yet?
Google is great, and you should work to get the Google rankings. However, if you give them complete control over your traffic then you deserve to lose everything in an instant. And, it isn’t just Google. I talked with a guy the other day that lost everything because he got banned from Facebook for spamming, and all of his marketing was done there. Well, first of all, he shouldn’t be spamming. Facebook is a great place to share information, articles, and network with people. But, Don’t get caught posting affiliate links or you are going to be banned. Also, you are not allowed to have more than 1 account there. I know one guy that had 6 accounts, all with his first name. He just got banned too.
Ok, so my rant for the day is over. I hope you learned something from my short post here. Now for the question of the day.. of course it will be related to the post ….duh…
What are the worst marketing blunders that you see online? Share the silliest mistakes that make you go “DUH!” Don’t forget, you will be entered into the blog comments giveaway that we are having.
This post was written by...
James Pruitt – who has written 234 posts on IMRelations Media.
I Started my internet marketing journey in 2008, as I began building simple affiliate sites. Through the years I have worked as a freelance writer, publishing my own blogs and websites, written several ebooks, and now work mainly to help others build their online business through my marketing consultations, personal coaching, and relationship building.
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Okay, so this is probably pretty obvious, but I’m a blockhead and it takes me awhile to learn things…
Anyway, it’s: Actually understand your market.
Every market has certain pain points and pleasure points and if you don’t understand these, you really have no chance of connecting with readers.
People that want to lose weight, don’t really care if they lose 10 pounds. They want to lose weight so that they can feel more attractive and confident about their body.
People in the language learning niche don’t care about learning Spanish (well, maybe some do…). They want to impress their friends and native Spanish-speakers when they travel to Mexico and and not feel trapped and lost resorting to the point-and-grunt method of communication.
Men in the dating and seduction niche don’t really care about sleeping with 1000 women (or whatever the over-the-top marketing claims). They want to feel desirable and learn how to build real relationships that they can be happy with.
It took me some time to really “get” this. I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t really wrap my head around this until a few months ago when I was flipping through a women’s fitness magazine–er, I mean a gun magazine (I’m macho, dang it!)
That is so right Clayton. Too many people don’t ever really get to know their market.
One thing I love to do is watch the Rachel Ray Show. She is always having people on talking about relationship issues, ways to feel better about yourself, and other things that are related to my markets.
You should be reading the things that your target market is reading. you can get great research material, and really understand how they are thinking, and what is really important to them.
You don’t have to be all macho. I never try to be. Thanks for coming by and commenting.
So much of marketing and business has to do with people, relationships and psychology of those two. Writing so people buy or take action is much harder than it appears, or as the Guru’s would lead you to believe by buying their course of how to write copy.
That is true. You need to understand what makes your readers tick in order to engage them in a conversation. that has been one of the biggest struggles for me in some niches. in others it seems to take off from the start.
Some niches seem more active than others. Doesn’t mean it is a bad niche, it may just mean more effort need to be put into building trust.
In my own Chiropractic niche which I belong to and write for, I can say it is a tough niche. Why? Because so many doc’s, myself included have been burned on crap marketing products, treatment products, get patients/rich products, etc. Excessively aggressive marketing has created a jaded and non responsive group. Too many newbies trying to sell in my niche make this mistake.
I have found it helpful to develop a good online relationship with a few people in my target niche and ask them questions about their industry. I also read trade journals or other industry related web and social sites to get a feel.
Hands down, one of the best articles I’ve read about this topic. I agree with everything especially with number 3, too much ads without relevancy not only looks spammish but unprofessional as well, in a sense. And number 1 is simply great, there are so many SEO, marketing, advertising techniques available and we should make us of it all and not just sticking to one strategy. I’m sure we all have faced one or two mistakes on this list but we sure can change that, right?
Great work on this one. Kudos to you my friend.
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