Learning from other marketers’ mistakes

There’s an old saying that goes, “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.” It’s most often used when someone is trying to create a new, often unnecessarily complex way of doing something when the existing solution is readily available and easy to use. In this case, a group of marketing experts who founded their own company, TopRight Strategic Marketing, decided to share their accumulated knowledge with marketers at large by teaching them how to avoid mistakes even the pros can make.
 
In Fact, David Sutton, president and CEO of TopRight, admitted openly that for the first five years, their business didn’t do so well. All they had were their pre-existing clients and their success was modest until 2011 when Sutton said, “We rethought our digital marketing strategy and over-weighted investments in emerging marketing technologies.”
 
Once they did this, their doors were flooded with new clients and their profits quadrupled in a three year span. So what did they do wrong to begin with? Sutton shared his expert insights.
 
Focusing on website utility first
 
First, he said, they overspent on a beautiful website that was impossible to use, whether on desktops or mobile devices. It was expensive to change and perform upkeep and basically became an unchanging brochure for their business, rather than a usable, dynamic platform that allowed them to interact effectively with potential clients.
 
The takeaway: Choose a platform that is easy to change, especially if you don’t have the funds for a full-time programmer on staff. Update it frequently so it remains fresh and interesting and visible on mobile devices.
 
Video is a powerful tool of communication
 
Not all videos have to be viral to be useful. In fact, some of the most effective videos might be merely informational, rather than entertaining. But the point of any marketing should never be purely to entertain, anyways. It’s a direct means of communication and people like that they don’t have to make the effort to slog through paragraphs of boring introductions and sales pitches.
 
Sutton said that when they first launched their site, they included an animated video that “describe[d] our firm, our capabilities, and our values in a fun and engaging way.” However, after just three months of use, they took it down, assuming their clientele had all seen it already.
 
In point of fact, the clients missed it when it was gone and asked about it when they no longer had access to it. They appreciated the ease of access to information that was explained in simple, concrete terms. If a picture is worth a thousand words, just think how much a video is worth.
 
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Source: www.cnbc.com/id/102451955#.