5 Marketing Mistakes That Should Haunt You This October

October is full of tricks, treats, and things that go bump in the night. But don’t let marketing mistakes spook your customers, drain your budget, and send your results straight to the graveyard.

Beware these 5 marketing “horrors”:

1. Your website is a ghost town.

The good news is your customers are visiting your website. The bad news is they’re finding outdated promotions, broken links, or last year’s holiday hours. Stale website content sends a message to customers that you may not be very organized, which is a bad first impression.

Just like maintaining a vehicle, it’s important to give your website a seasonal checkup. It doesn’t need to take a long time, but it’s worth updating your offers, verifying your contact information, and making sure customers know exactly how to do business with you today. Click through your contact form, test your phone number and email links, and check that your Google Business Profile hours match what’s on your site. As a business owner, there’s nothing worse than finding out the hard way that your website leads went to an incorrect email address, or the contact form link was broken.

2. The Invisible Business

You assume customers know you exist. You do exceptional work, you have loads of satisfied customers, but somehow you never seem to be as busy as your competitors.

Stay visible! Keep your business active across search, social media, email, and relevant local advertising channels. Out of sight can quickly become out of mind. Make the most of those satisfied customers and leverage good reviews in your marketing, especially during the slower months when your customers may be planning. Share a great review as a social post, feature one in an email, or pair a testimonial with your ad creative. Real customer voices carry more weight than anything you can say about yourself. Staying visible through the slow season works the same way retail stores put out seasonal items months in advance: it primes customers and keeps the momentum going.

3. The Marketing Budget Vampire

Don’t let your advertising budget be a bloodsucker. If you’re spending money on advertising without knowing what’s working, or what’s bringing customers through the door, you’re at risk of wasting your valuable marketing dollars.

Take a step back and track your results. Set clear goals, measure performance, and make informed decisions about where your next marketing dollar goes. Tracking doesn’t have to be complicated. Ask new customers “how did you hear about us?”, use a dedicated phone number or offer code for each campaign, and check your website analytics to see where visitors are coming from. Look at your campaigns year over year to see what’s changed, and take stock of the market, your competitors, and trends. What worked a year ago may need a second look this year.

4. The One-Size-Fits-All Marketing Trap

Sending the exact same message to every customer, on every platform, and hoping something sticks. Your customers aren’t zombies, so don’t treat them like they are.

Tailor your message to your audience and the platform they’re on. A social media post, an email, and a digital ad each live in their own place on the customer path to purchase, and have different jobs to do. For example, a short, eye-catching offer might work well on social media, an email can tell the story behind it, and a digital ad can focus on one clear call to action. Make your message relevant, useful, and suited to where your customers will see it. Small changes can improve the outcome of your efforts dramatically, so don’t get bit by complacency.

5. The Last-Minute Marketing Monster

Life is busy, and as a business owner, your marketing needs often take a backseat to more urgent issues. But waiting until November to think about holiday promotions, Christmas campaigns, and year-end sales puts you behind your more proactive competitors.

Start planning now! Carve out an afternoon, map out your November and December campaigns, set your targets, think about your message, prepare your creative, and book your advertising before the holiday rush hits. Ad space and production schedules fill up fast this time of year, and the earlier you plan, the more options you’ll have. Procrastination is scary. Missed sales opportunities are scarier.

Don’t let your marketing become a fireside horror story. You don’t need garlic, silver bullets, or a team of paranormal investigators to fix these problems, you just need a plan.

Ready to put the fright out of your marketing? Let’s talk about how to keep your business visible, relevant, and top of mind this fall.

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