I think it would be right to have a thread about what mistakes companies are making in their marketing. I will start to list up something that I have noticed over some years: 1. Missing contact details on web site. If a company does not have any contact details at all on their home page, something is terribly wrong. How can possibly customers reach you then? 2. In internet marketing many is focusing too much on organic search. If you are too depending on the organic search it can end up really bad. You should have multiple legs to stand on, and therefore also focus on other marketing channels as social media for example. 3. Companies spend too much money in new customer acquisition. The amount spend on customer acquisition can be lowered if you instead focus on taking care of your existing customers. It should be much easier to take care of a existing customer than obtaining new. 4. You are like everyone else in your niche. If you are like everyone else, why should the customer choose you? Try to do something different than your competitors. I guess DP-members have more to come with
The biggest mistakes many companies make is thinking like a marketer and getting caught up in that. They get so caught up in how amazing their product and service is that they make assumptions about them that are not realistic. Great marketers always think like their target audience (because they've studied them) and they know exactly how to see the world through their eyes. This is the only real way to keep selling and persuade the potential buyer and to attract more of them.
I was actually writing a blog post about it yesterday! As the biggest thing for me that sucks with other companies on the internet is customer service. I like to email and I answer all my emails within 24 hours so why do other companies that can afford to put the time into customer service take 3 days to send you some automated rubbish? There are only two online companies in the last year for my online business that have given me good customer service (Amazon & Fiverr) so why cant the rest be as good? Its the one part of my business that I have never outsourced as it shows the reputation of the company and when you get bad customer service you wonder what else is wrong with their company don't you?
Customer service is really something that companies should invest in. I think many can learn from Hostgator. They are great in my opinion.
Right on! My greatest asset are my returning customers. People who post paid ads in our classifieds and get results are more likely to come back and bring some friends along.