It’s 2020, and the competition in your market is fierce. What type of marketing tactics should you use in order for your business to be successful and which ones should you avoid?

How can you seamlessly insert ads into the daily lives of your customers without being annoying?

The goal of any marketing strategy is to increase conversions while spending as little money as possible. We’re going to give you alternatives to the marketing tactics you should be avoiding that will help your business succeed.

Don’t wing it

One of the most important marketing tactics to avoid is not being prepared. If you wing it, you will undoubtedly do more harm than good. And your business could potentially go down the drain. You need to have a digital marketing strategy in place.

In order to have a successful marketing strategy you will need to do market research, create buyer personas and map out your sales cycle. Knowing exactly who your customer is will make crafting your marketing strategy a breeze. Be careful when defining your customers base. You can’t possibly market to every single person out there.

For instance, if you sell coffee you’re not going to be targeting people who don’t drink coffee. Carefully build your buyer persona. It should be unique to your business. You will want to hammer out every detail from your customer’s annual income down to what they like to do on the weekends.

50% of sales time is wasted on prospects who are not interested in your brand or business. Mapping out your sales cycle will eliminate inefficiency, help determine how you are going to market to people, and identify strengths and weaknesses. It can also aid in remarketing.

If you know how long it takes a client to buy your product, you can remarket to them at the appropriate time. Your sales cycle will not be the same as any other business. It may take your customers as long as a year to go through the buying process. Or it could take them as little as a week.

It all depends on your products/services, your marketing efforts, and your customers’ preferences. No matter how long or short your sales cycle is, you need to map it out and make sure that it flows with the customer buying journey.

After you have written out your strategy and goals, you’re ready to decide which marketing tactics you want to use in your campaign. We’re about to show you which marketing tactics to avoid and which ones will help blow your competitors out of the water.

Stop running ads on TV

Do your customers even have cable TV anymore? Many younger audiences are cutting the cord and switching to platforms like Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube to reduce the amount of ads that often interrupt their shows.

Instead of TV ads, use remarketing ads. This is quite possibly one of the best marketing tactics out there. Remarketing is specific and targeted advertising to customers who have already visited your website. It can come in several different forms such as sending automated abandoned cart emails, advertisements on Instagram, or Facebook and banner ads.

Abandoned cart emails are one of the easiest ways to get customers to go back and continue their checkout process. They can be automated so that they send on their own and you can use a simple template with your call to action being to come back and shop.

A successful abandoned cart email will have a killer subject line, a photo of the item your customer has left behind, short copy that is enticing but not annoying and of course a call to action button.

Chubbies sends a great abandoned cart email. Their subject line is simple but catchy “Shorts are patiently waiting in your shopping cart.” Although they don’t show the exact item they do say shorts with photos highlighting shorts. The call to action button is big and bold so that there’s not a chance someone would miss it.

Customers who are browsing a clothing site for example may click through some items but not make a purchase. You can gather this data on your site and use it to your advantage through remarketing advertising. Have you ever shopped for a product and the next second it appeared on your Facebook feed?

No, Facebook isn’t listening in on your conversations. But they are tracking your every move when you’re online. In order for this to work you will have to install a piece of tracking code on your website. Then your website will be able to send information to Facebook.

You will also have to create an eye catching ad so that customers will flock to your site. You can customize who will see this ad and how it will appear.

Not design savvy? Our graphic designers can create the perfect Facebook ads to draw your customer back to your site to make a purchase.

J. Crew offers 40% off in order to get customers to click through to their website. This is a great marketing tactic because now that people have already visited their site, they’re being brought back by a discount!

Banner ads are images that may appear on another site you are browsing with the goal of redirecting you to make a purchase. These work similarly to running ads on Facebook and Instagram.

The user will visit a website that your ad is running on. They may decide to click the ad in which case they will be directed to your site or landing page to make a purchase.

In the case that they do not click on your ad, you will need other marketing tactics in place so that you can capture the sale.

But know that even if they did not click the ad, your brand just gained more exposure and is still positioned in their mind as a possible solution to the issue they are facing.

Remarketing can help you close sales, gain more customers and increase traffic to your website. Setting up one of these marketing tactics can be a bit challenging. If you are struggling through it, give us a call and speak to a digital marketing professional. We’ll get your remarketing ads up and running in no time!

Avoid radio ad marketing tactics

Yes people still listen to the radio. But there are so many different people who listen to the same stations. How are you possibly going to target the right people who actually have the potential to become your customers? How are you going to know who hears your ad or who actually takes action? What if people hear your ad but still have questions?

The bottom line is: radio ads have no way of giving you measurable results that justify their cost. Instead of wasting money on radio ads, write a blog for your business.

Blogs are effective, useful, and can increase your online visibility. Publishing written content in the form of blogs helps answers questions customers might have about your brand, business, products or services.

Your blog can also help you come across as a leader or influencer in your industry especially if you keep it up to date.

Blogs build trust with potential customers. If they see that you are actively producing high quality content that is useful to them, they are more likely to trust you.

Blogging can be time consuming though. Generate more content faster when you work with a digital marketing company like ours. Check out our blog writing services to see if they fit your needs.

Blogging can also help with SEO. SEO or search engine optimization is how you appear in search. By optimizing your website you can organically move up in search results for target keywords. When potential customers search for a product or service that you provide, you want to make sure you show up on that first page of search results.

You can, of course, optimize the pages on your site, but you can also write blogs to rank in search for specific keywords. We use this marketing tactic ourselves for our blogs.

After you read this blog, you may Google “digital content strategy” because you want to start your own blog. When you do, you’ll find another one of our blogs to provide you with more information.

Notice how we have the top ranking position and the featured snippet. We’re getting double exposure for no additional cost. I’d say that’s better than a radio ad, wouldn’t you?

The more blogs you write, the more chances you have to rank. The key here is to make sure that your content is helpful to your potential customers. If you can increase the time they spend on your site, this will also help you to move up in search.

If you are a B2B company consider using webinars to grow your business and advertise to potential customers. This is a great way to show customers what your business can do for them. Webinars are informational, and you can put your best foot forward. This is also a chance for you to interact with your customer base. Have a Q&A so that you can answer your potential customers’ questions about your services.

Don’t pay for billboards

Billboards are one of the most expensive traditional marketing tactics and can cost anywhere from $300-$1,000 dollars. They are especially costly if you need to hire someone to design your ad too.

There’s no way you can tell how many potential customers have interacted with your billboard. People are most likely driving down the road when they see billboards. How are they going to take down your information if they have two hands on the wheel?

When people are multitasking they actually have to stop and focus on one thing at a time. Do not make potential customers do two things at once. You want their full, undivided attention when your end goal is to get them to convert.

Instead of advertising on expensive billboards, use banner ads. Banner ads are also known as display ads and can be set up through Google Ads.

This type of advertising allows you to run your ad on a host website. Users on that site will be shown your banner ad. And if they click on it, they will be taken to your website or a specific landing page. Banner ads are great for generating leads and bringing awareness to your brand. (And remarketing to customers like we mentioned before!)

Lead generation is one of the most important parts of a marketing campaign. Without leads, it is difficult to build a customer base. Leads are people who are interested in your brand and are willing to learn more. They are ready to listen to what you have to offer.

We were able to generate over 200 leads using this form for this particular residential mortgage lending company.

Brand recognition and awareness are essential for the success of your business. Brand recognition is whether or not someone can identify your brand from a logo or symbol associated with your business.

Brand awareness is how well a customer knows your brand’s culture or values. Generate both through banner ads and effective lead generation ideas, not billboards.

Don’t advertise with flyers

Flyers can get lost in the mix and aren’t really effective. They waste paper, time and money. And, most importantly, there’s no way to measure your ROI. Potential customers may see your flyer but there’s no way for them to interact with you.

Instead you should build a website and make sure it is optimized. Flyers are limited to a finite amount of space for you to include your information. The internet is endless! If you don’t have a website you are making a huge mistake. If you aren’t ready for an online store, that’s totally fine but at least have a place where potential customers can come to learn more about your business.

Building a site that is functional, yet aesthetically pleasing, can take a lot of time and effort. Not to mention all of the complications you can run into if you lack experience. Let a professional handle it so that you can get back to running your business.

In addition to optimizing your website you need to make sure you have a Google My Business account. This is a free service that you should be using to your advantage. It lists your location, hours, website, directions, reviews and more so that potential customers can easily find out more information about your business.

Look how much information you can have on your Google My Business page. This can be crucial when a customer needs to find your business. Make sure this is constantly updated and that all of the information is correct.

Getting reviews on Google is another marketing tactic you should be utilizing. Although it may not seem like “marketing” – reviews can help potential customers or leads decide if they want to do business with you.

Imagine speaking with someone on the phone who owns a furniture store about a couch you would like to purchase. They’re friendly and seem really helpful. Then you Google them and find out that they have all bad Google reviews. You’re probably not going to purchase that couch anymore.

Although you cannot delete reviews, you can monitor them. If there are unhappy customers, reach out to them and see what you can do to fix the problem.

Don’t use snail mail campaigns

Just like other forms of traditional non-digital marketing, snail mail marketing campaigns won’t do much for your business. You can’t physically see who has opened them or who has taken action.

Utilize the power of email marketing in your digital marketing campaign. This is one of the marketing tactics that drives more conversions than any of the other marketing channel out there.

In addition to not using snail mail to market to your customers, another marketing tactic you will want to avoid is buying emails lists. Do not buy email lists from anyone, anywhere at any time.

Instead build a list of customers who actually want your emails. Why? They will engage with your content and be more likely to convert. Don’t waste your time and money on people who are uninterested in your brand and won’t engage with your emails.

Another pro of organically building your list is that your customers will be less likely to mark you as spam.

Imagine getting an email from a company you have no interest in and that you are 100% sure you didn’t give permission to send you emails. They are clogging up your inbox and you are not happy about it. It’s likely that you’ll mark them as spam instead of just unsubscribing. This registers with other user’s email providers as well.

So just by a handful of people marketing your emails as spam can affect hundreds of other recipients. Your emails will start directly going into spam inboxes and never truly reaching people on your list.

Within email marketing you will also want to avoid spamming your email list. You have worked so hard to obtain these emails and you want to reduce unsubscribes as much as possible. If you send too many emails, people may stop opening your emails or unsubscribe altogether.

You will have to do some research and some testing to find out what your customers want.

Get rid of your old website

One of the biggest mistakes companies make is that they don’t update their old website design and content. Keeping up with design trends can increase trust with potential customers.

If a customer lands on your website and it has an engaging design and excellent user experience, they will be more likely to purchase your product or service.

You know the saying ‘we eat with our eyes’? The same is true with website design. If it looks unappealing people will find an alternative.

If you are an ecommerce business, then you definitely have a checkout page. When a customer is making a purchase they want to be certain that their credit card information as well as their address is safe.

This billing information page below is simple but seems a little suspicious. There isn’t a security seal and the page doesn’t show which products you are purchasing.

Now compare it to this updated checkout page.

It is much more visual and tells you which products you are buying, the price and delivery fees. It allows you to create an account which can make customers feel protected.

There are also simple additions that increase trust. This site requires your name as well as your phone number but explains that they may need to contact you about your order.

Not only will you want to update your site for visual purposes, but you should also keep it updated with current information for both customers and search engines. Search engines like Google are constantly crawling your site.

When someone performs a search, Google wants to make sure that they get exactly what they are looking for. If you regularly update your site and add new content then search engines will keep coming back to crawl your site. This can push you up in search rankings. New content can come in the form of a blog, new products or the creation of additional pages.

Using these web design marketing tactics are great additions to your advertising and email campaigns. If you have a great advertisement but a checkout process that is poorly designed and optimized you will quickly lose customers.