Marketing mistakes can be costly for any business. With marketing strategies that span through so many channels and that are so diverse, it is important to stay relevant and to do so, you must audit your strategy from time to time. With so many different marketing options and methods, it is easier than you think to make mistakes.

These mistakes can cost you time and money. For that reason, we have collected marketing mistakes for you to avoid.

1. Staying personalized instead of individualized

So many people will talk about personalization, but they are still having a difficulty creating a meaningful customer experience. Everyone is personalizing their emails to a certain extent, but ask yourself the following:

Is your personalization mass level, where you’re simply changing and putting in the customer’s first name?
Are you taking individual insights into account?

Recent studies show that only 6% of marketers report having a single customer view across both online and offline channels. If you do not fall into the category of this 6%, then your marketing is probably not targeted enough.

2. Not following the 80/20 rule

The 80/20 rule teaches us that 80 percent of the effect comes from 20% of causes. In terms of marketing mistakes, not applying this same rule to your marketing campaign is a critical mistake.

Whether your focusing on social media marketing, email marketing, or content marketing, your 80% focus needs to be bringing value to your target audience. This leaves the other 20% of your effort’s to be focused on the promotional activity. Following this rule keeps your audience engaged and helps build long-term relationships.

3. Ignoring customer retention marketing

Retention marketing should be the cornerstone of your marketing strategy. Firstly because it is much easier to sell something to someone you have built a relationship with; Secondly, it is much more profitable to sell to existing customers.

Research shows that the probability of selling to an existing customer is between 60 to 70 percent. The prospect of selling to a new customer is in the range of 5 to 20 percent.

4. Ignoring new platforms and new channels
The most successful companies will do everything they can to take advantage of all marketing channels. They make sure to stay up to date by not sticking to the same old channels and strategies.

Studies have shown that retailers who chose to take advantage of multiple channels were more profitable than those using only a single channel.
Technology is constantly evolving, partaking in relevant marketing channels is crucial for connecting with your target audience.

5. Emails for promotions only
there was a time in email marketing, where emails were used for the sole purpose of promotions. We have now learned that email marketing plays a monumental role in building trust-based relationships to engage, convert, and retain customers.

One of the biggest marketing mistakes you could make with your email campaign is to continue you to use it only as a promotional tool instead of an engagement tool.