6 Reasons Why Marketing Fails and How to Prevent It

When it comes to marketing, there are no guarantees. A great marketing idea that is poorly implemented or incorrectly presented can have less than desirable results. You might spend hours of development time and a ton of money, so pay heed to the advice to ensure top results.

There are many factors that dictate the success or failure of any marketing campaign. Let’s discuss what they are and how to prevent the disasters from happening—or at best, keep them to a minimum.

First: Not Having or Following Protocol

No campaign should be without a protocol or plan of how to implement, disseminate, follow up on and measure any marketing effort. Not having one is just foolish. This critical step often is missed or not followed even when one is in place. We get busy and complacent and decide subconsciously that we can skip that portion this time, but this time is the start of a downward spiral to mediocrity that then becomes a habit—not good!

Recently I developed a very simple, yet effective award-winning marketing campaign for iPROMOTEu. I was curious why some distributors were having tremendous success while others were faltering. I interviewed several affiliates but one stuck out in my head. I asked him what he attributed the success of the campaign to, and he responded, “Cliff, I trusted and followed your outlined protocol to the T, and it works.” Many of the affiliates have seen a more than 80 percent appointment rate setting with this piece. Having a sound protocol, following that plan and believing in that plan ensures greater success than leaving it to hope and chance.

Second: Wrong Targeted List or Contact

Preparation is yet another essential key to a successful campaign. The shotgun approach or mass blast marketing efforts is a thing of the past, as it is ineffective and very costly. Marketing today must be laser focused with the right message and targeted specifically to the right individual. With advancements in technology, marketing messages easily can be pushed out to the market. This is why your message must be concise, targeted, focused and hit an emotional trigger with that target buyer. Developing the right target audience means doing ample research and segmenting the list both laterally and vertically; and then honing those lists with various criteria that narrow the focus down to a manageable group. Lastly, send the piece to a person not a title. Otherwise it will be perceived as junk mail.