15 Signs You Need To Be Better At Marketing

John Rampton penned down these lines on www.forbes.com. Read and enjoy:

It takes a strong person to admit that their marketing isn't up to par. But it's far better to admit it than to keep using outdated, ineffective or harmful strategies.

This post will look at 15 signs your marketing is failing, and what you need to do about it.

1. Inbound marketing? What's inbound marketing? If radio spots, TV commercials, and billboards are your idea of marketing, it's time to rethink your strategy. Inbound marketing lets you attract customers by offering valuable content, rather than pushing out your message. Inbound marketing has also been proven to be far more effective than traditional advertising; that's probably why 81% of businesses in 2016 choose inbound as their primary marketing method.

2. You don't have a documented marketing strategy. Do you run your marketing off the cuff, just kind of doing what feels right at the time? According to the Content Marketing Institute, best-in-class marketers are more likely to have a documented strategy than their less effective peers. If you want to take your marketing to the next level, it's time to document your plan.

3. Email isn't part of your strategy. Are most of your time spent blogging and interacting on social media? While these avenues are both important, email should definitely be a key part of your strategy. Use the other channels to attract prospects, and then get them into your funnel by collecting their email addresses.

4. You don't really know why you use social media. Are you using social media just because you think you're supposed to? Unless you know why you're using it, it's probably not all that effective for you. For optimum effectiveness, use it to promote your content, build community, and address customer service queries and complaints.

5. You don't regularly update your company blog. You don't need to write a new blog post every single day. In fact, 1-3 times a week is sufficient for most businesses. However, if you're posting once a month or less, you're probably not generating enough traffic or interest to make your efforts worthwhile.

6. You're doing SEO, but it isn't working. SEO is a long-term endeavor. It can take 4-6 months to even begin seeing results. If you're putting in all the time and effort to do keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, etc., and still aren't seeing any results after 6 months, you need some help!

7. You haven't checked your analytics in months. Almost everything you do in terms of marketing should be data-driven. What's worked in the past? What hasn't? Don't repeat the same mistakes again and again; make a habit of checking your website, email and social media analytics at least once a week.

8. The idea of targeting hasn't crossed your mind. Let me ask you: who's your target audience? If your answer is "everyone," it's time revisit the idea of targeting. Figure out exactly who your ideal customers or clients are, and focus on attracting those people. Otherwise, you'll be wasting a lot of time and money on people who will never buy from you anyway.

9. You're not ranking in the first few spots for your business name. If your customers or clients Google your business name -- can they find you? If not, this is a serious problem. For help with this, check out my post

10. You use social media exclusively to post links to your blog. Do you use your Facebook and Twitter accounts to share daily links to your blog? If so, how's that working out for you? I'm betting it's not. Don't use social media to push your own agenda or control the conversation; use it to engage and interact with your target market.

11. You use social media to share pictures from your family BBQ. When I said social media was for engaging and interacting, I didn't mean sharing highly personal photos of your kids, dogs or private family events. While those can sometimes be part of a bigger strategy, keep your social media marketing focused on....well, your audience and your business.

12. Your competitors all outrank you on Google. There will always be someone who outranks you on Google. However, if most or all of your competitors outrank you for the most popular and lucrative keywords, something has to change.

13. Your site gets lots of traffic, but few sales. Not all keywords and traffic sources are created equal. A site that receives 100K visitors but no sales is useless, whereas a site that receives 1,000 highly-targeted, motivated buyers is gold. If you're getting lots of traffic with few results, take some time to evaluate:

-the keywords where you're ranking,

-where your referral traffic is coming from, and

-how you could optimize your site for conversions.

14. Marketing is something you do "when you have time." While you might achieve some modicum of success using this strategy, your marketing probably isn't as effective as you'd like. At the very least, have a plan in place for how often you'll post to your blog, how you'll promote and distribute that content and how you'll test its effectiveness.

15. You create tons of content, but no one cares about it. Did you know that the majority of content that gets posted online gets little to no traction? According to Moz, 75% of content gets zero links, and 50% gets 2 or less Facebook interactions. If no one's reading your content, follow this simple 3-step plan:

-Research which topics and issues your audience actually cares about,

-Write high-quality, long-form (1,200 word+) content that addresses those issues, and

-Have a plan for promoting that content via email and social media.