Since we shifted to the digital age, the marketing landscape has evolved at a rapid pace. For students, this means that what they learn in their marketing courses might no longer be relevant when they graduate.
As such, it can be confusing how to figure out new trends and take on a real job. In this article, we will focus on what mistakes marketing students should avoid – be it in college or while on the job,
1. Focusing on Theory, not Application
When majoring in marketing, naturally, students must pay attention to theory and understand the fundamentals. However, marketing is more than knowing about different theories and technical tools; you should also learn how to apply them. Some marketing courses offer a hands-on approach to teaching rather than offering just theory classes.
However, students often brush aside these as assignments to complete and instead spend their energy on completing college term papers. The best way to deal with this is to get some help with theory papers. Students can now pay for papers via academic platforms that will fulfill their exact requirements. This way, you will have more time to work on group and individual projects that teach you the practical aspects of marketing.
2. Marketing for Metrics and Not Humans
In content and email marketing, businesses often rely on keyword research in order to find the right components. However, many businesses fail to understand the main purpose of doing keyword research. This is only to help you gain more attention from the audience; however, if you don’t create content with your audience in mind, your marketing strategy will not be successful.
Forcing too many keywords into your content will make it stand out from a mile away. Not only your audience but also Google will detect this and even perceive your content to be keyword stuffed.
Instead of focusing on SEO, the priority should always be given to the quality of the content. There is no need to force multiple variations of the same search phrase – such as “flights to Paris” and “Paris flights.” Today’s search engines are sophisticated enough to detect that both these phrases are intended for the same search type.
When writing quality content, the chances are the keywords will find their way in naturally.
3. Not Experimenting
Creating new marketing strategies is not simple. No matter how carefully you devise a strategy, you cannot be sure that it will hit the mark. In this game, you will have to set and reset your expectations to identify what works and what doesn’t.
At the same time, following the same strategy simply because it was successful once might not get you results either. For the audience, the same marketing content can be boring, and you won’t get any response from them. So, the only way to improve is by experimenting. Today, with digital marketing tools, it is simple to know how your strategies are performing.
As such, do not hesitate to be bold and try new ideas to see which ones work and which don’t. Unless you are actively experimenting, you can’t possibly get better.
4. Not Being Consistent With the Brand
A business’s brand voice is something that its customers identify with. As such, when trying out new strategies, you should not overlook the importance of being constant with the brand image. If you do not stick to the same kind of lingo, message, or even imagery, there are high chances that your audience will notice that change.
Similarly, you should make sure that a company’s brand image remains the same across all marketing channels. It would not be apt to go for multiple styles and imagery on different channels. A lack of consistency in branding can tarnish the initial impression you leave on potential customers.
5. Not Tracking Results
One of the biggest advantages of studying marketing is that you will learn about which tools to use and for what. Tracking the performance of each marketing campaign is paramount; this can help you understand what you did right and where you are going wrong.
For instance, you might be driving traffic to your website; however, the bounce rate might be quite high. In other words, your strategy fails to convert visitors into customers. This means that you don’t need to revamp your entire strategy but focus more on the landing pages or offer attractive incentives for users who make a purchase. To put it simply, you should track all stages of a marketing funnel.
6. Ignoring Feedback
The basic principle of marketing is to make a product or service look attractive to the target customers and get them to buy it. This requires finding out what your target customers are interested in and how they would react to different types of content.
While surveys can help you with this, perhaps the easiest way to find out this is via the comment sections and reviews. Remote marketing agents often overlook this part and wonder why what they offer is not attractive to the customers.
Similarly, marketing students should also learn how to go through customer feedback and incorporate valid points into the strategy. We are not saying you should pay attention to every single comment. However, it would be a good idea to evaluate the response from the audience rather than just stick to metrics.
7. Overlooking Traditional Marketing Strategies
Although video marketing is gaining popularity, it would be a bad idea to focus exclusively on this. However, traditional approaches such as content and email marketing can still bring exceptional results to the brand. Sometimes, even TV ads or billboards might work well for a company.
This is why research is key to marketing. Depending on the specific products you are selling and the target audience, you will need to shift between multiple channels.
8. Not Defining the Target Customer
All the points we discussed above can turn out to be pointless unless you know what kind of audience you are targeting. When devising a marketing strategy, the first step is to narrowly define the customer and what they care about.
Only then can you figure out how to approach them and what tactics might work best for them. This will also avoid spending unnecessarily, creating marketing strategies that are not relevant to the specific group.
Avoiding these marketing mistakes might seem simple enough. Yet many brands and their marketing team tend to overlook these – so it wouldn’t hurt to bear these in mind throughout your career.