5 Things You Should Stop Doing Now That Are Hurting Your Marketing ROI

Are you looking for ways to get better marketing results? Perhaps you’re thinking there are other things you could be doing to make better use of your marketing budget or increase marketing ROI. It’s possible, however, that there are things you need to stop doing first.

In today’s post, we’re covering some of the most common marketing mistakes hurting businesses’ bottom lines (and how to avoid them).

5 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

1. Forgetting Your Target Audience

It’s easy to get caught up in the creative process or media placement decisions. However, if a marketing decision is not tied back to your target audience, you’ll likely be wasting time and money, and you won’t get the results you want.

Identifying your target audience enables you to position your brand in a way that appeals to the people who are most likely to be in need of your product or services. Ensure that your marketing clearly communicates to your target audience how your company can meet their needs, fix a problem or help them reach their goals. And keep them in mind the whole time! Don’t neglect the target audience research down the road. Revisit (and refresh) what you know about your target audience at the start of every marketing campaign, so you can make adjustments and plan the most effective strategy.

2. Cutting Your Budget

There is a clear link between budgeting and marketing ROI, but it’s not what you may think. There is plenty of evidence that indicates that cutting your marketing budget will negatively impact your marketing success and will make your company less profitable. That’s because lost sales as a result of budget cuts will likely exceed any savings you achieve.

In fact, an Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) study indicates that companies should be spending more on marketing in order to achieve better results noting that some advertisers are leaving money on the table by under-spending. Findings of the study suggest that advertising on just one additional platform increases ROI by 19%.

3. Going All Digital

Digital marketing is important, but it’s not always more important than traditional advertising. When it comes to cost, measurability and precision targeting, digital is hard to beat. However, people must first recognize your brand in order to get the best results from digital, and it can take months or years to grow brand name recognition. Traditional advertising, on the other hand—TV, radio and even print to an extent—has a proven and continued track record of trust and success, and is better suited for reaching certain market segments.

4. Not Tracking Your Results

If you’re not tracking marketing ROI, it’s hard to know if you’re getting your money’s worth from your marketing. Consistency in tracking is essential for understanding how well your marketing strategy is performing and where you need to make adjustments. Monitoring and measuring your results begins with understanding your current market position and your goals—because you won’t know how well you’re doing if you don’t know where you started or what you’re trying to achieve. By putting in place tools to measure and analyze the performance of your campaign, you can maximize its effectiveness and optimize ROI.

5. Doing it Yourself

Trying to reinvent the wheel and do everything yourself could be hurting your overall success. It’s likely you will achieve better results by working with a professional media partner and relying on their expertise to expand your marketing department. They have the tools and resources to develop a strategy that targets the right audience and they know how track the performance of your campaigns down to the details, from reach and frequency to impressions and CTR. By relying on a pro, your internal team will have more time to focus on the customer experience or marketing channels to increase conversions and get the most bang for your buck.

Do any of the above sound familiar? If so, it might be time to change things up. Before reinventing your marketing wheel, make sure you address these common marketing mistakes.