Marketing Myths and How To Overcome Them
When talking about marketing, what comes to mind will always be about sales and conversion. While there may be a lot of opinions about what is good marketing or how it should be done, the bottom line is – different marketers have their own different strategies.
Depending on the business that marketers are working on, there are different ways marketing can become successful.
Marketing is any activity a business undertakes to draw attention to its goods or services through effective messaging. To demonstrate the worth of a product, build brand loyalty, and eventually increase sales, marketing seeks to provide prospects and customers with stand-alone value through various content.
However, some different marketing myths or misconceptions hinder your marketing strategy from being successful. Here are some of them:
Myths or Misconceptions About Marketing
Marketing is the same as advertising
These two words are always considered as one and the same. But this is not the case. Marketing is different from advertising.
Advertising is when a business pays for a space or service to reach out to as many individuals as possible and have them purchase or pay for whatever the business sells.
On the other hand, marketing has a broader picture of how consumers relate to a brand. A marketing strategy may include a variety of ad formats. It also considers the campaign's performance and determines its long-term effects on consumers.
More importantly, marketing is concerned with “how can we keep our customers coming back?"
Everyone is our customer
As a business owner, always remember that what you offer may not be for everyone. Recall that attempting to please everyone makes you nothing in their eyes.
For example, Baby Gap is not a store that people who don't want children will visit or someone with a severe dairy allergy will purchase your ice cream, regardless of how good it is.
The most successful marketing understands its target audience and knows how to connect with them. Consumers seek out companies that they can relate to, that make them feel understood, and that provide them with more than just a basic product.
You only need one type of marketing content
Different kinds of content will appeal to more of your target audience instead of just sticking to one. Make the most of each format's unique potential to improve and provide your marketing communications with greater impact for your target audience.
Use different content formats such as text-only, long-form, video, image-based, short-form, graphics, and animation. Stay updated and relevant so you can provide the best content that works for your business.
There’s no need for a marketing strategy
There are only 40% of marketers who have a written content marketing strategy and some of them believe that there’s no need for a marketing strategy.
Without a plan, you will never know what is working or not for your business. Avoid producing content just for the sake of it. Take your time developing a thorough plan, record it, and provide backing for it.
Inbound Marketing is Just a Fad
Inbound marketing is associated with one of the latest misconceptions in digital marketing. Since it is just recent, there is a great deal of uncertainty around it. However, inbound marketing is really employed by a large number of marketing professionals and has shown to be effective.
More marketers utilize inbound marketing than we realize. According to HubSpot, "3 out of 4 marketers across the globe prioritize an inbound approach to marketing." Hence, inbound marketing is considered an effective marketing strategy and will last for long.
If You Have a Great Product or Service, You Don’t Need Marketing
The primary goal of marketing is to raise brand awareness to sell the goods or services that your business is offering. Exposure to the product or service is lost when marketing is eliminated.
A brand can expand, be recognized, and become profitable when a marketing strategy is in place. Every business faces competition. A marketer's responsibility is to explain to customers why their brand is superior to other companies that offer the same good or service.
However, if marketing is eliminated, exposure will vanish, and businesses will lose the opportunity to grow the profitability of their products or services.
Anybody Can Do Marketing
Effective and efficient marketing is a challenging task. Because it is ever-evolving and changing, marketers must continue to change their campaigns to meet new platforms or trends.
After they effectively modify their ideas and techniques for marketing, they have to keep an eye on how campaigns are doing across several platforms. Once done, they have to adjust once again to improve the campaign's performance on any particular platform.
Hence, doing it alone or anybody can’t simply do marketing.
What Should You Do to Overcome Them?
There are ways to break these marketing myths and avoid falling prey to these beliefs.
Remember that not everyone is a customer. Make sure that you research and find time to determine your target audience. Knowing your audience demographics will help in directing the right customer to your business or service thus increasing your revenue.
Advertising is part of a marketing strategy. Start with having a goal in your mind. Are you doing a sale, or introducing a new product? These questions will help you determine the correct advertising method to use for your business.
Inbound marketing is important because it can contribute directly or indirectly to increasing your business revenue. It is focused on the specific needs of your customers and the ability to better track your campaign. Hence, there’s nothing wrong with using them as part of your marketing strategy.
Marketing is a challenging aspect of every business and not everyone can do it. Consider hiring an expert to assist you in planning the best marketing strategy for your business.
Every business needs marketing, but of course, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. What may be effective on one business, may not be effective for your business. Therefore, it is important to plan your marketing strategy, implement it, and continue to monitor its progress.
Content is king as the saying goes. But keep in mind that there are different types of content and they can all be used depending on your business and who are your target audience. Don’t limit the content you use for your marketing strategy. Find out which of the different content types works best for your company and make the most out of it.
While there are still a lot of businesses that don’t have any marketing plans or are afraid to use marketing, this should not be the case.
Remember that marketing is simply transferring information from one audience to another. It is a process whereby you provide information about your product and service intending to grow your audience and convert them into profit.
Marketing Solutions for Your Business
Many marketers believe these marketing myths exist. However, they hinder you from finding the right marketing strategy for your business. Learning to break these myths and staying true in the marketing process will help in growing your business.
Break these marketing myths with SmartVAs! We believe that there are always solutions to growing and keeping your business relevant. SmartVAs have expert marketing VAs to help you find the right marketing strategy for your business.
We aim to assist in curating marketing strategies that are designed to achieve long-term and great results for your business.
Book a call today! Visit our website and learn more.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is good vs evil marketing?
They are sometimes referred to as effective and ineffective marketing. This is a measure of how effectively you interact with your clients and whether your efforts align with your marketing and organizational objectives.
Good marketing refers to effective strategies made by businesses to promote their products or services and interact with their target audience while accomplishing their marketing goals.
On the other hand, evil marketing is all about hype, pressuring people to purchase your product or service without understanding the needs of your audience. It may either have no effect or harm your business.
What is toxic marketing?
Toxic marketing is an approach where it uses misleading or manipulative tactics to grab the attention of customers.
Some of them include consistently selling on social media, not understanding your audience, focusing on just numbers, and expecting to have an immediate payoff.
What is the #1 rule in marketing?
The #1 rule in marketing is knowing and understanding your audience. It is an important foundation of every effective marketing strategy.
Gaining a thorough understanding of your target audience's needs, tastes, and behavior to help you make important decisions.
Your marketing efforts will be more successful if you can use this information to customize your message to their interests and problem spots.
Understanding your audience will help you produce content that speaks to them, pick the best channels to reach them on, and develop a message that motivates them to act.