Which of These 5 Marketing Mistakes Are You Making? | 2022–23 | SaaS Businesses

Marketing strategies that used to work 5 years ago are no longer effective — And you probably know that already! The online market is constantly evolving, and so are businesses and brands. As sales and marketing are becoming more effective, your prospects are seeing a different world today than, say, 3 years ago.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen many startups waste funds on ‘generic’ advice that doesn’t fit their business model and product. This article covers five marketing mistakes most startups and many businesses make that set them up for failure.

#1. Selling Through Advertisements in a Competitive Market… Yes!

If you have Google Ad preferences on, you know how annoying ads can get. We’ve become so accustomed to hyper-intrusive ads that we let them make subconscious decisions for us. Coming from a generation that’s transitioning from low to high Ad exposure says plenty. Traditional ads are losing their value because there are a lot of them, and the interval between each consecutive ad is close to none.

So, should we stop using Google, YouTube, Reddit, Quora, and Amazon, then? — I didn’t say that!

Just stop making your advertisements look and sound like advertisements! The last thing anyone wants is to be sold something. If everyone’s going on about listing the benefits of using their service, why would your potential customers/clients want to listen to you?

Think of advertisements as a way to create value, build relationships and generate leads.

#2. Not Segregating Prospects “Who Need” From Those “Who Might Want”

Most startups don’t know how to position themselves with their customers because their sales funnel is riddled with all kinds of people. If you want to hit the bull’s eye, you need to narrow down your audience to just one imaginary person who’d definitely buy your services, and once you do that, you can open multiple channels and build an ideal clientele portfolio.

Creating a brand voice around an imaginary person doesn’t mean only people with similar attributes would buy your service. A client persona is used to materialize your brand voice, so people familiarize themselves with it.

Your brand voice must be such that whenever people read or listen to anything from you, they know it’s you.

Most marketers create multiple client personas to get their voice around people who’ll buy!

#3. First Sale? Okay! Thank you for buying. See ya!

Don’t ghost your customers! Whether they are your prospects, leads, or customers, keeping them updated and helping them use your service in the best way possible is critical to building trust, credibility, and high perceived value around your brand voice.

When you keep people updated on the progress and actively receive their feedback during the testing and development phase, they identify themselves as a contributor to the creative project.

When you’ve built a strong rapport with your prospects, you’re not focused on selling but on solving their problem.

You need something different — Something that connects with your readers/viewers/prospects at a deeper, emotional level. And for that, you’ll need to stop selling to people, and instead, make them a part of your growth journey.

#4. Injecting Words and Phrases to Communicate That You’re Smart/Competent — This has never worked actually

If you want to sound credible and authoritative, stop using jargon that your prospects don’t understand. If your target audience is software developers and you use financial and business jargon to talk to them, they’ll feel overwhelmed.

Small teams and startups often try to handle all marketing and outreach by themselves. While their approach could work in some B2B settings, many times, your prospects cannot articulate the benefits of your product.

Work with professional content marketing experts and sales reps who can communicate the benefits of your product and strategically position your business with the right customers.

If you want, I can do that for you! DM me on Insta or mail me at [email protected].

#5. This is What My Product Can Do…

Entrepreneurial stories are inspiring and fun to read, but generally, they don’t suit SaaS businesses well.

“I faced a serious struggle scrolling through the news feed, so I sat with my friends, typed a code for 3 straight hours, and created this amazing auto-scroller. Pls, buy.”

Many times, the developers are so enthusiastic about showing the world their brainchild that they become totally ignorant of the buyers’ interest. People don’t care what your product can do. They want to know what’s in it for them!

For this, you need to present your service, not as a tool, but as a premium package of benefits. So, anything you put in front of potential customers should increase the ‘perceived value’ of your product in some way. This is why most SaaS businesses create blog articles and newsletters that convey their product’s benefits in different ways. This creates a snowballing effect, which increases the perceived value of their product and brand over time.

Conclusion

Ads are an incredible tool for building authority, trust, and brand awareness in a short time. So, don’t use them to create intrusive broadcasts that come off as sales pitches. At the end of the day, an avoidable sales pitch will always be avoided.

Ideally, a TOFU (top-of-funnel) lead generation strategy should always create value. Most marketers term this as “putting a piece of cheese on a mousetrap,” implying that their customers or clients are rats. I don’t prefer using aggressive sales terminologies, but nonetheless, it’s a great analogy.

That’s it for this one. Like what you read? Like and share! Want technology and SaaS content that strategically positions your business with the right audience? Message me through shuflash!

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