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Critical Mistakes That Derail Your Marketing: Part 1

February 23, 2009 I just read a terrific white paper called "Nine Critical Mistakes That Can Destroy the Sales Effectiveness of Any Marketing Piece," from Daniels' Graphics Services. If you haven't read it, download it — it's free.

In this post, let's look at the first five of the critical mistakes. But since you can download Daniels Graphics' analysis from the white paper, I'll throw in my own two cents here.

1. Mailing your marketing piece to the wrong list.

This sounds really dumb, but it happens all the time. One of my favorite 1:1 printers recently wrote on his blog about receiving a "green" marketing piece that really impressed him . . . until he realized that it had been sent to six others in his office, too! Most of the recipients in his office had nothing to do with print procurement, which was the focus on the piece, so it was a really un-green thing for the marketer to do. This realization completely undermined the effectivness of the piece.

2. Not targeting to your best buyers.

We've talked about this in this blog many times before. Unless you know who your customers are, you can't market effectively to them. Do you know who purchases the most from you? Who purchases the most frequently? If not, you should.

3. Not targeting your own customers.

Your best, most profitable customers are already in your customer database. That's why it's worth the effort to spend a little time and money developing and expanding that database. The white paper points out that, unless you market directly to those customers, 33% of them will leave you within five years because of perceived indifference. That's a pretty jolting figure—don't let that happen!

4. You have not checked that your contact details are correct.

If you aren't updating your customers' contact details, you are wasting tremendous amounts of money on printed materials that are being delivered directly to the trash. It's not profitable, it's not green, and you're wasting the best marketing opportunities you have!

Regularly ask your customers to update their contact information so that you aren't wasting time, money, environmental resources, and future relationships. Send out an email request. Put a form on your website. Add a form for updating contact details on regular client contacts, such as invoices and newsletters. Give them every opportunity to keep their information current with you.

5. You forgot to put your own contact details on the piece.

How will customers buy anything or follow up if you haven't given them a way to contact you? It sounds foolish, but it happens all the time. Believe me, I have had to do it. Don't make your prospects Google you. Make your name, address, phone number, email address, and company URL easy to find.

Yes, provide them all — every customer wants to contact you in a different way. Don't try to funnel all of your customers through the same contact channel. Let each customer choose the one they are most comfortable with, and then communicate with them through that channel.

We'll touch on the last four mistakes in the next post.

Have questions? Comments? I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at info@digitalprintingreports.com. For more information on primers for marketers and small businesses on digital, 1:1, Web-to-print, and personalized URL applications, visit Digital Printing Reports. You can also keep up with all of my posts on EBS, The Inspired Economist ("Greening Print Marketing"), and other blog sites by following me on Twitter.

Posted by Heidi Tolliver Nigro on February 23, 2009 | Comments (1)