9 Common Marketing Mistakes that Can Cost Your Clients Money

By Sean Brooks on Sep 15, 2021

There were 5,523 digital advertising agencies in the US in 2021, and that doesn’t include agencies that specialize in other types of marketing. And every year there’s more. How do you differentiate your agency from the rest and proffer impressive returns on investments for your clients? How do you provide top notch digital marketing services without getting burnt out?

One way is to look for the best marketing services reseller platform you can find to expand services into new areas without taking your eye from your core business. This can keep you from making costly mistakes.

What kinds of mistakes? Read on for nine common mistakes marketing agencies make that can cost your clients.

1. Placing Too Much Focus on Clicks and Impressions at the Expense of Value

Clicks and impressions are great for your case studies and marketing reports. But at the end of the day, clients are concerned with ROI.

To deliver give great results, it is important not to use click bait to rake in meaningless impressions and clicks. Instead, attract customers with information they value. This is the surest way of providing quality leads for your clients. Click bait will only give you numbers, but high-value content will give you loyal customers. High value content provides genuinely helpful and relatable information to your target audience.

In his bestseller book The Psychology of Persuasion,  Robert Ciadinni discusses the law of reciprocation, explaining that it is human nature to reciprocate every good deed. If you are able to help your client’s target audience solve some of their pressing issues with your valuable content, they are more likely to follow your guidance to take desired actions. In other words, when you give your clients’ customers value, they are much more likely to convert.

2. Delegating Too Much Content Creation to Beginners

Some marketing agencies tend to make the mistake of delegating work like content creation and social media management to interns. Social media management and content creation is hard work and should only be done by qualified professionals with a proven track record.

Over 420 billion people are active on social media and 54% of these users use social media to research products. This makes it one of the most effective communications channels for most brands today. Studies have shown that the effectiveness of social media marketing is closely related to quality of content, customer engagement and user experience.

If you do not have a qualified social media specialist or content creator, find the best marketing services reseller platform you can and outsource the work. Smart marketing agencies use the services of experienced fulfillment companies to provide top notch results for their customers, thereby increasing customer engagement and ultimately conversions.

3. Not Using Data Effectively

Marketing agencies are obsessed with data, but some don’t know exactly how to use this data to provide great results. We want to prove to our clients that we know our stuff. The problem starts when agencies only use data for this purpose and not to do the actual work for which they were employed, which is usually to help the company grow.

In order to make proper use of marketing data, you have to remove complete focus on the numbers and reporting and shine light on the “why” behind the data. There is a real-life reason behind the data you have gotten from your marketing efforts. Your team needs to brainstorm and put on the shoes of the prospects you wish to reach to see exactly why they reacted the way they did to your content, advertisements and other marketing outreach.

This will help you discover what you need to double down on and what you need to delete completely. We have made it easier for you by providing a checklist of key KPIs that you must track to provide great results for your clients. Use this list during your brainstorming and data analysis session for greater results.

4. Ignoring the Power of Referral Programs 

A study done by SocialMediaToday records that 78% of B2B marketers say that referral programs generate excellent leads. They also report that 60% of marketers say that referral programs generate a high volume of quality leads. So, it’s surprising that a lot of marketing agencies do not create proper referral program strategies for their clients.

Word of mouth and other forms of referrals still remain the oldest and most effective form of marketing. Studies have shown that a customer is more likely to do business with a company that was referred to them by a friend. This means you are leaving a lot of money on the table by not creating a great referral program for your clients.

If this part of marketing is new to you and your team, you can simply outsource to best marketing services reseller platform you can find.  They can create a process for ongoing referrals from your clients.

Also, don’t forget that online reviews provide much the same power as personal referrals. You may want to outsource this work to a fulfillment company that performs white label reputation management. Managing a company’s online reputation is critical work, but it’s also time consuming.

5. Taking on Too Much Work 

A lot of marketing agencies make the mistake of taking too much work.

The idea of a lot of work may sound like dollars in your pocket but it’s important to not take on more work than your team can handle because it would surely tell on your campaign results.

The solution here is to find out your team’s strengths, then employ a good white label fulfillment company to handle other areas. That way you can expand without sacrificing quality or losing your mind.

6. Delivering Poor Quality SEO Work

A lot of marketing agencies focus their marketing efforts on paid advertising and don’t hire experts for SEO work. Some just read a couple of SEO articles and call themselves SEO experts.

This a critical, money-draining mistake. SEO is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies. because it targets users who are actively looking for your products and services online. You can multiply your clients’ conversions by simply paying more attention to SEO.

If you are not an expert at search engine optimization, you can easily outsource this to the best marketing services reseller platform you can find. This single act can increase your clients brand awareness by a whopping 70% and ultimately increase their conversion rates as well.

7. Ignoring Cultural and Political Sensitivities

You have come up with what you think is a good idea. You love it, your team loves it, and your client loves it. But are the people reviewing your campaign representative of your entire audience?

Consider reality show star Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad which aired in 2017 in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests. The video shows young people smiling, laughing and sometimes dancing as they march down the street holding signs with watered down messages such as “Join the Conversation.”

In the ad, Kendal Jenner leaves her fashion photo shoot to join the protest. She strides smiling through the jovial crowd, grabs a can of Pepsi and hands it to a police officer. The crowd cheers as the attractive officer drinks the Pepsi.

The ad received immediate and harsh criticism for appropriating imagery from protests about serious societal issues and employing them to sell soda pop. Twitter almost universally agreed that “This is what happens when ads are approved when there are no black people in the room.”

So, yes, be creative. But when tackling the issues of the day in order to sell products for a company, be sure you have heavily vetted the campaign. If Pepsi had sought advice from diverse individuals and held focus groups made up of diverse individuals, it’s unlikely Pepsi would have ended up hiring a PR firm for damage control as they publicly apologized.

8. Retargeting Every Bounced Customer

Retargeting is a very powerful tool you can use to increase conversions for your clients. Retargeting campaigns can increase conversions up to a staggering 150% ! However, most marketing agencies tend to overdo it and unnecessarily waste a substantial part of the advertising budget.

Why not retarget everyone?  Not everyone that comes to your client’s website is a real prospect.

To differentiate valuable bounced prospects from the rest, follow the customer’s website journey. For example, don’t waste your time targeting customers that only go to one page of the website or spend less than a minute on the website.

Focus your retargeting campaign on customers that have reached certain action points on your client’s website such as subscribing to mailing lists, commenting on content, shopping for a length of time to show intent or putting something in a shopping cart. When you optimize retargeting campaigns, you can markedly increase ROI.

9. Getting Caught Up with Fleeting Trends

A lot of marketing agencies get caught up in what we call the “new technology syndrome”. They want to try everything new and trendy.

While it is good to keep up with marketing trends in order not to get left behind, it is also important to remember that although trying out these new trends is great, but the jury is still out. Tests and metrics need to be run over time.  So, try the new trends, but be wary of over-allocating budget, resources and focus.

Help Is at Hand

It’s important to identify mistakes and make adjustments in order to deliver more successful campaigns. You don’t need to do all this on your own. Umbrella is one of the best marketing services reseller platforms around. We invite you to contact us for an informative consultation about how we can help you expand without risk.