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Not all companies are built to last, and that doesn't necessarily mean they've failed. Failure only occurs when the exit doesn't provide a positive return for shareholders. As this metric shows, between 75% and 90% of all startups fail, compared to about 70% for small, non-startup companies.
One of the most common reasons a startup fails is ineffective marketing. Your marketing strategy is as critical to a startup's success as securing initial funding. Avoid these mistakes as you develop.
1. Insufficient market research
Every entrepreneur has eureka moments when a great idea comes to life. But no matter how great your idea is, you can't build a startup based on an idea alone.
You must resist the temptation to spend countless hours on product development before working out other aspects of your startup. Instead, conduct thorough market research first, and then use the insights from your research to shape the product development process. In the end, you'll have a product that truly appeals to your target audience, and you'll be well on your way to launching more effective marketing campaigns.
Related: The 5 Most Damaging Marketing Mistakes New Entrepreneurs Make
2. Not knowing the customer
As you conduct market research, you learn about your target audience. You define the usual breakdowns of age, gender and salary, and this information will prove useful. But beyond the usual metrics, you need to focus on knowing your customers' pain points. What stresses them out? What keeps them up at night? What stops them from clicking “Add to Cart”?
Understanding your customers' problems helps you create more compelling marketing materials that convey value. You need to convince your customers that your product or service can make their lives better, easier, or more enjoyable.
3. Not knowing yourself
“Know thyself” is more than a Socratic maxim repeated by self-help gurus. It is also a fundamental marketing concept. As you get to know your customers, you need to get to know your brand better.
You can only develop effective marketing strategies and campaigns if you have a clear understanding of your brand identity and brand voice. All of your marketing materials must align with your brand identity to convey consistent messaging, build trust, and convey authenticity.
4. Trying to be everywhere at once
Smart entrepreneurs understand the critical importance of marketing to a startup's success, and unfortunately, that knowledge can lead them to make another marketing mistake. You may envision your brand being present on every social media channel and your website ranking first for every related search term.
However, if you're just starting out, don't try to be everywhere at once. Instead, focus on quality over quantity. Identify only a few of the most influential platforms and target those first. Focus on only a few of the most relevant search terms, only one or two key influencers, and so on. Also, resist the temptation to scale your campaigns too quickly.
Related: Avoid the “too fast, too furious” approach to scaling a startup
5. Scaling too quickly
You already know that you have to spend money to make money and that a significant portion of your funds must be allocated to your marketing budget. But remember that it's not enough to burn through your entire annual marketing budget in just one quarter. In other words, don't scale your marketing campaigns too quickly.
If you prefer quality over quantity, you will launch marketing campaigns in small chunks. Track the results carefully, learn from them, and make adjustments as needed. When your results match your goals and you feel your strategies are on solid ground, you can launch a large-scale campaign without wasting unnecessary ad spend.
6. Pursue results arbitrarily
Of course, before you can track the results of your marketing campaigns, you need to know exactly how to do it right. If you only track results haphazardly, you will get an incomplete picture of the effectiveness of your campaigns and end up wasting your advertising budget.
Unfortunately, common tracking methods leave a lot to be desired. For example, you might think that Google's tracking is pretty robust, but it doesn't monitor every stage of the customer journey. It might attribute a sale to one of its PPC ads, while completely ignoring the role an Instagram post played in the purchase behavior.
Instead, you should track every single touchpoint in the customer journey. Traditional tracking methods don't do this. That's why my company, Ai Media Group, uses Atrilyx™ – our own proprietary technology that tracks and attributes every touchpoint to optimize conversion paths and increase ROI.
Related: You're wasting your time writing ineffective marketing emails – here are 5 time-saving tips for writing emails that get results.
7. Lack of cross-departmental communication
Evolution is inevitable, and in the startup landscape, it needs to happen quickly. Your marketing team needs to not only quickly identify whether adjustments are needed (and implement those adjustments) based on tracking data, but also make adjustments based on cross-departmental communication.
All too often, different departments in a startup operate in their own bubble. Without open communication between departments, the marketing team may not get all the information it needs to move forward. For example, the customer service team will develop a sense of the most common reasons for customer dissatisfaction, but if that information isn't passed on to the marketing and product development teams, those problems won't be solved.
For example, multi-touchpoint attribution can alert the marketing team to a product development issue that's causing prospects to disappear. If a communication gap occurs, this potentially fatal error may go unresolved. In other words, you can use attribution not only to sharpen the focus of your marketing campaigns, but also to drive product improvements and innovation—but only if your startup encourages open communication.
All brands evolve. It's important to embrace change and chaos and learn from it all. When you have a coherent marketing strategy with robust results tracking, you'll find you can pivot more quickly and effectively, driving your startup's success.
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
