SIR THORNEY

On several occasions I’ve met brands about marketing and realised their problems are beyond the advertising. Maybe they’re marketing using another agency and it’s not working, or they’re a new brand interested in marketing but I could see potential issues already.

Here are some business sins that could result in good marketing going to waste:

Bad Receptionists or Salesmen 👔

Whoever answers the phone for your business is vital. They provide your customers’ first impressions of the company, and if they’re not pleasant; a hot lead will transform into a dropped call.

It takes 20 seconds for someone to gain a first impression, and I imagine this is true of businesses, too. If whoever answers your calls is rude, not knowledgable, or generally incompetent; customers won’t stick around.

Likability is important for a wide-variety of reasons, including customer retention.

Missed Call-To-Actions ☎️

In theory, having 1 call-to-action or contact method would be the dream. Things would be cleaner and less confusing; customers could enter their details, pay for the service/product, and then the service/product would be delivered. Simple.

In reality, this doesn’t work. People will always have questions about products/services, people might be scared of putting their details into a website or speaking to someone on the phone, and they’ll generally differ in how they want to interact with your company.

Recently I’ve seen brands trying to streamline leads by only using forms (no phone number or email). However, this ignored one crucial detail; what if a potential client wants to ask a question? Even though they’re a potential client, there’s no way for them to get in touch to ask any questions, so you’ll lose them.

Lack Of Following Up Leads ✉️

Following up leads reduces the chance of them going elsewhere (since you’re being proactive and are interested in doing the work).

One of my biggest clients I chased for a year straight, and one of my current design projects took 2 years of regular reminders.

The Service / Product / Price 📦

Sometimes, it’s the thing we don’t want to talk about; the actual service or product itself. Potentially your pricing is too high, or maybe it’s just not as good as what your competitors are offering; and that’s okay.

Review the prices or product/service and try marketing, if results are still bad; potentially the marketing simply isn’t as effective as you first thought.

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