Marketing Mistakes You Should Know About

In this post, we delve into the common traps marketers fall into and how best to avoid them.

The majority of marketers use automation, but there are common and completely avoidable, mistakes they tend to make. We help you to avoid them by breaking them down, one by one. Here’s how NOT to do it.

The Pitfalls Of Dirty Data

Quality data or clean data magnifies marketing automation while dirty data diminishes it. Polluted data is expensive because you’re making decisions based on incorrect data, running the wrong gamut from incomplete to insecure information.

We need to bring up the dangers of an unclean email list, one that is full of duplicates, spam addies and expired contacts. Why? Because it can result in lead losses, costly email marketing, reputational harm to your intellectual property and low engagement metrics. And you don’t want that.

The Perils Of Choosing The Wrong Automation Tool

Unearthing the correct automation platform lays the foundation for building a solid marketing campaign, according to a recent report. But it’s no use if you don’t know how to make full use of the tool you’ve selected from your marketing toolbox.  

The security of your marketing automation tool needs to be airtight. The last thing you need is for your competitors to be able to spy on you, or for your customers’ personal information to be leaked.

If your marketing automation app is glitchy and erratic, its functionality fickle and if it doesn’t do what it says on the tin, it’s useless to you. Undelivered core promises are dead in the water.

If your marketing automation tool costs the earth, but works wonders, it may still be disproportionally expensive. A reduction in campaign cost efficiency will negatively affect other areas of your core competencies. Due diligence comes into play here.

Make sure your marketing automation package includes

1. Scalability
2. Knowledge resources and client support
3. Integrations
4. Reporting and enhanced analytics
5. User-friendliness and interface intuition

The Problem With Automating The Wrong Thing

Bots and software excel at doing what we tell them – they’re designed that way. But what if we tell them to do the wrong thing? Organising process computerisation, even with a big error at its core, will still get executed.

No amount of automation is going to rectify unprofessional-looking templates or unpersuasive copy. Too much automation can make it difficult to locate the mistakes in the marketing content you’re distributing. Balance in automation is key.

Failure To Test Or Optimise Marketing Automation

Effective marketing campaigns hinge on testing to optimise result-based strategies. Trialling content is a reliable way for companies to get a clearer picture of their target audience, forecast campaign outcomes, and tweak their strategies for maximum success.

By building two versions of the same campaign, you can compare the different elements one variable at a time, putting you in a prime position to fine-tune your stratagem.

The Liability of Customer Spamming

As a problem, marketing spam persists. Although automation eases the flow of sending thousands of messages to your contacts, greater volume doesn’t necessarily mean greater lead conversion. In fact, it can have the opposite effect. If your content is sent too frequently or is sent to disinterested people, your content may get flagged as spam. This may result in reputational damage and a decline in sales.

The Risks Of Misaligned Sales And Marketing Teams

Siloed marketing automation is a no-no. Marketing is there to reinforce services, sales, products and essential business functions. So, it’s critical for your marketing team to recruit all hands on deck to ensure workflows function in synch for smooth operational sailing.

Marketing and sales teams must work in alignment to transform leads into marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) into sales-qualified leads (SQLs) to create customers. Instead of your sales reps performing energy and time-sapping chores, marketing automation can help drive them to the finish line by converting leads.

The Hazards Of Not Training Your Team

You can have the most powerful marketing automation in existence, but if your team isn’t trained to use it, your marketing vehicle won’t leave the runway. All stakeholders need to understand what the tool can do for them, how to use it in conjunction with workflows they are busy with, and how to use it for projects in going forward.

Guidelines For Training Your Team

• Niche your training specifically to the team. Data dumps are of no use to anyone. Focus on relevant information only and keep to the topic.
• Ask your provider if they offer training. Get service provider reps to take part – if anybody knows the software parameters, they do.
• One session won’t cover everything − develop a training course. Use a blend of learning techniques to cover all bases.

Are You Really A Human?

If your content is generated by excessive automation, you may come off like a robot and alienate your customers. No one wants to feel like they’re communicating with an algorithm. Creativity and originality trump formulas and templates every time.

The Dangers Of “Setting And Forgetting”

Automation is more hands-on than most people think, although it may look like it lends itself to just that – set and forget. Actually what it does is let you focus on evaluating performance and optimising it, instead of obsessing over output.

The Risks Of Only Using One Kind Of Automation Tactic

Everyone does it. You get comfortable with one way of working and get complacent. In the case of marketers, that means familiarising yourself with one set of tasks and sticking with them. But you could be missing out on chances to expand your brand. Instead of sitting back, lean forward into the perks, your software has to offer.

Make full use of them to leverage operational efficiency. Identify the small manual tasks that add up to chunks of time consumption and use your tool to automate them. That way you’ll have extra time to focus on what’s important: group strategising, quality content creation, and lead generation and nurturing.

Your treasure trove of auto-marketing features jewels like drip campaigns, lead rotation, contract/quote automation, lead nurturing, lead scoring, and task management. And let’s not forget the shining jewel in the crown: chatbots.

The Trouble When Your CRM And Automation Software Don’t Assimilate

The marketing tools that you use to simplify processes and reduce operational costs need to talk to each other. If they don’t, all your marketing efforts will fail to land. Ensure your CRM and automation software are integrable and affordable before making any buying decisions.

The Setbacks Of Being Goalless

You don’t need to be reminded that you need goals to assign to every automated element of your strategy, from triggering your campaign to registering outcomes and everything in between.

The ability to measure the success of your marketing automation is all-important. And it goes without saying that evaluating goal attainment is fundamental. Fortunately, HubSpot’s Workflows answers the call for automated workflow goal setting.

Granular goal setting, like nurturing dead leads and resurrecting them, is easily achievable with the HubSpot platform, which also lets you track each workflow’s percentage of contacts who become marketing-qualified leads, for example. It’s not overstating the case that the higher the ROI of your marketing automation, the greater your investment, and the greater the satisfaction among your leads and customers.

The Jeopardy of An Unsegmented Email List

Sending out a bunch of "unpersonalised" emails gives you no bang for your buck. Churning leads, albeit qualified leads, just because your mass emails miss the mark is a waste of automation.

Laser-focusing customised emails that will hit the intended target in their sweet spot is more to the point. Segmenting your email list lets you send precisely nuanced emails to specific recipients, and increases the likelihood of those emails being opened by them.

HubSpot’s segmentation feature, with its demographic and behavioural criteria, helps you focus your emails with bull’s eye accuracy.

The Hitch In Focusing On the Wrong Metrics

You may be tempted to focus on high-performing metrics to the exclusion of other important numbers when you review the performance of your automated marketing software. But getting distracted by, say, a high email open rate means you fail to see the bigger picture – is the campaign itself performing?

A high click-through rate is great but is potential leads taking any action after opening your email? These are the questions you should be asking yourself. Consider the various metrics at play when measuring your automated campaign, and how the nuances impact each other.

When all is said and done, avoiding the obstacles and leveraging the successes of marketing automation software is your end goal.