Your phone's autocorrect function may be the funniest form of mistake-making known to man. We dare you not to snicker at these beauts from http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/ (Careful- many of the hilarious entries on the website are NSFW)
Einstein-level geniuses have an excuse for a few lapses of dignity. Their common sense has been evicted by the sheer volume of brain it takes to navigate the universe of abstract mathematics.
“They’re incapable of managing normal day to day affairs... History is littered with anecdotes of geniuses who fail at the most spectacularly mundane tasks. Einstein got lost on one of his sojourns in Princeton, New Jersey. He went into a shop and said, ‘Hi, I’m Einstein, can you take me home please?’ He couldn’t drive and the small things that most people take for granted were totally beyond his capabilities.”
Helena Kealey of The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11232300/Why-do-geniuses-lack-common-sense.html>
For the rest of us average types, chances are that we can be susceptible to the occasional Rookie Mistake.
So Here's to the Rookie.
You've seen them. You've been them!
They are the ones that wander the gym reading the instructions on the equipment, then grab a pair of 50 pound dumbbells with which they execute five agonizing, wobbly lifts. Then they retreat to the ellipticals for some "cardio, bro."
These are the forgot-the-diaper-bag, saying-the-wrong-thing-at-the-funeral neophytes who have nowhere to go but up!
Don't worry. United WebWorks is here to help. If we may give a bit of advice… it's possible to avoid many of the calamitous rookie mistakes made by marketers everywhere, both newbies and oldbies.
Learn and live, friends, by knowing and avoiding these common marketing mistakes, and make the world of commerce a far better place.
Rookie Mistake #1: Not Marketing
Talk about yourself and your company. We know that some of you are somewhat allergic to self-promotion, but unless you are selling fissile material to on the black market, you ought to tell the world about your expertise.
Use any excuse to send out a press release, from celebrating your third anniversary in business to winning that nice contract. Stay in touch with current customers, but let everyone in on the conversation.
Speak at conferences
Guest-write on other blogs
Get interviewed by your local Chamber of Commerce
Even if you are happy with your flow of leads and customers that come from word of mouth or otherwise, that may not last forever. Things happen!
Rookie Mistake #2: Ignoring the advice you got about SEO-ing your website material
We know, it's tempting to skip this step because there's a lot to know and once you figure it out, the rules change (again). Before you wave it off, consider this:
Optimizing for Search engines, specifically Google, gets you noticed. Getting noticed moves you up the ranking chart. Taking the top position means WAY more clicks than any other position. More clicks = more leads, more business.
Optimizing on keywords is only part of the equation. Google is increasingly figuring out how to rank based on the quality of your link, which is another story!
Just understand this: almost one in three searchers will click on you just because you are in position one. That rate falls precipitously once you arrive at position 4.
http://www.keylimetoolbox.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ctr-averages.png
Rookie Mistake #3: Dissing Social Media
This is where the real conversations are taking place. Do you really want to miss out on the best word-of-mouth opportunities in history? The speed and ease of posting tweeting, pinning, and u
pdating makes entering the daily world of your customers a no-brainer.
Start sharing good informative, humorous, insightful posts now. It may take a few months, but your tracking will show the worth of giving it a try.
Rookie Mistake #4: Keeping Secrets
Instead of holding every aspect of your business close to the vest, show the world that you are in fact an expert in your field. Do that by publishing step by step guides, diagnose problems that your service solves, explain in detail what you do and how you do it.
What the heck - why not email the company you are prospecting and give a thorough rundown of why they are misguided, short on the right resources, or shooting in the dark? They just might email you with an offer.
There are a few things you shouldn't reveal, but that list is probably a lot smaller than you think.
Rookie Mistake #5: Not Reaching Out to Other Rookies
Who is your audience, anyway? Take a good hard look at your customer base and don't neglect the beginners who have almost no knowledge about your product or service. Give them how-to guides, orientations, webinars, whitepapers- whatever they need. Not only do you become a subject matter expert, these rookies can refer you to other rookies as the one among your competitors who looks out for the little guy.
Rookie Mistake #6: Not Measuring your Marketing
We guess that pouring money down a hole in the ground isn't your idea of a good time. But that's exactly what happens when you fail to measure what's working in your marketing activities. And yes, this really is measurable. With just a bit of extra data entry or attention to the connections between your marketing campaigns and actual revenue, you'll grasp the handle of a powerful tool.
The data collection headache has been long solved by CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce. So put those buckets of money back to the bank where they belong.
Rookie Mistake #7: No Calls to Action
Some sales principles apply no matter where or how they are applied. That's true for sales principle number one: always encourage your listener or reader to make a choice. Include Calls-to-Action (CTA) throughout the nodes of your online presence. Every blog post (wait, you're not posting a blog once a week? We'll get back to you on that…), every appropriate page of your main website, every email needs some kind of direction on what the reader can do to take it to the next step.
A CTA doesn't have to pushy at all. In fact, the best ones offer the audience something valuable and helpful as a way of establishing confidence or trust in you. CTA's change with context, from a simple attractive offer to the new visitor to a persuasive "what's keeping you from buying today?" pitch to someone who is ready.
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In the words of the peerless, eloquent Hannah Montana:
Everybody makes mistakes…
Everybody has those days... 1 2 3 4!
Everybody makes mistakes
Everybody has those days
Everybody knows what
What I'm talkin' 'bout
Everybody gets that way...
Indeed, Hannah speaks the truth. However, we at United WebWorks are here to help you avoid the mistakes we've made. We don't mind sharing the wealth of marketing techniques and tips with our loyal readers. If you want more, there is more where this came from!