It’s hard to find a brand more iconic than Coca-Cola. Yet, even this behemoth in the beverage industry has made its fair share of marketing blunders over the years. The most famous of which occurred in 1985 when executives launched “New Coke,” a product designed to counter the advances rival Pepsi had been making in the market. The result of the New Coke experiment? Abject failure. Consumers hated it and Pepsi used the flop to further cement its status alongside Coke. The point is, no business –– no matter how influential –– is above reproach. The good news is, you can avoid making dumb marketing decisions by learning from previous mistakes. Here are four marketing ideas that aren’t just bad, but have the potential to harm your business and cost you money:
An Unneeded Rebrand
Change for the sake of change is not only unnecessary, but it could alienate your current customer pool. As alluded to above, if you’ve got a good thing going –– keep it going! There’s no need to “shake things up” when your current strategies are performing well. Think about marketing plays like stock investments. Why would you swap a stable full of bulls for marketing ideas that are nothing but downers and bears?
Anti-Social Media
Dealing with negative reviews and hostile comments on social media is never fun, but there’s a right way to handle criticism and a wrong way. When a company lowers itself to the level of trolls and engages in mean-spirited, petty arguments it opens itself up to further scrutiny. Alternatively, ignoring all comments made on your social-media pages will lessen their effect and neuter your efforts to promote content.
Dialing Back the Blog
Speaking of content, it’s almost never a good idea to halt your blog-writing efforts completely. Even if you’ve been blogging for years with minimal success, giving up on content creation isn’t the way to go. Rather, if you’ve had trouble establishing traction with your blog in the past, you may want to consider a new approach or try to improve your own writing. But quitting outright will weaken your website’s online visibility.
“Let’s Go Big”
Dreams are great. Ambitions are wonderful. Still, every business owner needs to understand their company’s limitations –– especially early on. Spending huge amounts of capital going after super competitive ad keywords and pitting yourself against the titans of your industry will inevitably yield meager returns. Remember, David doesn’t always beat Goliath. Particularly when Goliath’s budget is ten times greater than David’s.
The Bottom Line
Everyone has their own unique skill set. Specialization in the workspace means more and more companies are collaborating with each other to enhance productivity. So don’t be afraid to reach out to a marketing agency in order to improve your company’s digital performance. Partnering up with the right firm could be the best marketing decision you ever make!