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RiRi Okoye: 10 Reasons Why Marketing Plans Fail and How to Fix Them

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Have you analysed your marketing strategy for the year? Many businesses struggle with marketing and getting their products or services to the right audience without figuring exactly where the problem comes from. Let’s highlight some marketing failures and how they can be avoided:

Not Having a Strategy

A marketing strategy is the business’s overall game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of their products or services. Most business owners who seek my coaching services come because they don’t have an effective strategy. They have never spent time working on their businesses and don’t have clear marketing goals. A marketing strategy is only part of the marketing plan. Here are some examples of marketing strategies – content marketing, email marketing, email marketing, referral marketing, promotions, influencer marketing, just to mention a few. Start today to have a strategy in place. It’s not too late. Just start.

Not Understanding your Customers

When I was an undergraduate, I worked as a part-time telephone researcher for a company called BMRB, calling up customers who had purchased bathroom equipment. It seemed really tedious at the time but I later realized how much this market research was so important to my clients. Improvements were made to the product because of the research.

So today I ask, ”What are you doing to understand your customers better and serve them better?”

Not Including a Call to Action

If you don’t tell your customer what to do, they won’t do it. Have you ever noticed how influencers on Youtube, despite having thousands of followers, always tell their audience to subscribe to their channel and turn on the notification bell? That’s how they grow their followers. What do you tell your customers to do after offering them value? Here are some examples:

  • Learn more
  • Sign up
  • Download
  • Contact us
  • Shop now
  • Book now
  • Watch more
  • Apply now
  • Subscribe now

Poor Targeting

I say this time and time again. You can’t serve everyone. You have to niche down to target the right audience. Your target audience is no longer just about your target demographics – age, location, hobbies of your ideal client. You’ve got to dig deeper and understand their deepest fears and pain, their buying motives, possible objections and then communicate how you can solve it.

Lack of Patience

Marketing success takes time; it takes time for your target audience to know you, like you, and trust you. If you have been marketing for a month, that is not enough time to determine if it’s working. It takes at least 6 months to know if your marketing campaign is working for you. Consistency is key because you might be tempted to give up while your strategy is still developing.

Poor Products or Services 

If you are not getting a flood of testimonials from your customers or referrals, then your product or service isn’t great. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t improve it, remember to do research and ask customers how you can serve them better.

Poor Product Description

Have you ever been on a website or been interested in the product but it’s difficult to buy because the instructions are not clear, or there are not enough payment options? That happens, that’s why you have to make it as easy as possible for customers to buy.

Not Analysing your Marketing Campaigns

A campaign is a specific strategic effort at promoting something. For example, right now, I have been assisting one of my clients with marketing campaigns. As it’s doing well, the campaign will keep running but if it wasn’t doing well, we would keep the goal but change the tactic.

Not Testing or Innovating

It’s rare to find a business owner who gets their business marketing right away unless, of course, they hire an expert. You will test a lot of strategies to find the best one(s) that work for your business and make adjustments where necessary. One of the principles of good marketing is to test and test, and keep testing.

Not Investing in a Marketing Coach

With their experience in marketing, a marketing coach can come up with an effective marketing strategy for your business and push you to achieve your goals. They can help you analyse your marketing and help you identify the gaps. They can also help you to activate new strategies that will ensure your performance advances to the next level.

I hope you find the above insights useful and start today to improve your marketing. Happy New Year.

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Featured image: Dreamstime

RiRi Okoye is an Event Planner & Confidence Life Purpose Coach (Certified). If you would like business resources from her, you can visit ririokoye.com or follow her on IG @ririokoye

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