5 Rookie Mistakes in Marketing (and Why You Should Ditch Them)

Marketing is a fairyland for the curious.

That's how my mentor sees the art of marketing: an industry that never runs out of wonders. Yet it can also be a dizzying rabbit hole of trends and techniques. There's always a new app, a hot and trending tactic, or an algorithmic update that can be so stressful to keep up with!

Beneath all the bells and whistles lie the fundamentals. And yet these foundational concepts are what most rookie marketers (like me) often ignore. Maybe they sound boring. Or textbook-ish. Or they sound like grandpa's worn-out tales from his badass youth memories.

But if we want to become real marketers that bring in tangible results for our company and clients, we have to outgrow these five rookie mistakes in marketing.

Rookie Mistake 1: Promotion = Marketing

In my first year as a wide-eyed copywriter and digital marketer, I thought marketing was all about pretty posters and witty slogans. I thought it was all about bringing out the Don Draper in me and crafting creative promotional materials.

But that's just promotion, which is only one out of the four Ps of marketing. Marketing is so much more than that.

There was a time in Prodigy when we sat and analyzed our output to the bones and compared which projects were "creative" enough. We were so focused on the artsy side of things that we paid little to no attention to systems, strategies, and sales.

But not anymore. Today, we're balancing creative genius with strategic plans through funnels.

Rookie Mistake 2: Disconnecting Marketing Efforts from Sales Results

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We used to dissociate marketing efforts from sales results, thinking one had little to do with the other. After all, it can be hard to tie long-term marketing strategies to short-term sales results. So for years, we focused on marketing for marketing's sake—with sales as an afterthought. But effective marketing drives sales and sales fuel marketing efforts. It's a virtuous cycle.

As Prodigy grew, we learned how to embrace what marketing truly is and keep improving how we set and track goals for our clients.

Rookie Mistake 3: Selling to Everyone

I'm a recovering people-pleaser. So I sympathize with every entrepreneur who tries their hardest to target every customer on earth. Because just as we're prone to convincing everyone of our worth, we don't like other people rejecting or criticizing our products and services. We treat our businesses like our babies!

There are more reasons we try to target everyone, but the bottom line is it hurts our businesses.

We know because we experienced its consequences too. Back then, we used to have a broad target market—and if they had a business, we wanted them as clients! This mindset made it difficult to find clients who resonated with our values, which led to an unimpressive client retention rate, wasted time, and a colossal ad spend.

Through continuous learning, we narrowed down our focus and clarified who we wanted to serve. Because while selling products to everyone works for some business models, it isn't always the case. And knowing the best targeting strategy can make a vast difference.

Rookie Mistake 4: Forgetting Our Customers Are Humans

We're not selling our services and products to nameless robots.

We're selling to humans with real emotions, struggles, stories, and concerns. We buy stuff based on our feelings and justify our decision with logic.

For this reason, we have to understand who our customers are—and meet them where they are. Here are three ways we can do this

1. Buyer Persona vs Buyer Insights We used to treat buyer persona creation like a build-a-bear station—we pick the parts and characteristics of our ideal customer to build a profile solely based on our limited perspective and biased assumptions. Sure, we have to start somewhere, which could be our client's perception of their target customers or our salesperson's initial conversations with prospects.

The problem is stopping there, with just one source of truth. In Adele Revella's book Buyer Personas, she reminds readers that buyer persona profiles shouldn't be static documents. They're not supposed to be printed, stored in a box, never to be glanced at or updated again. Buyer personas are simply starting points.

But as we go along, we should verify our assumptions and balance our hunches about our ideal customers with real buyer insights.

We can do this through:

• Qualitative research

• Interviews

• Buyer legends

• Big data

• Web analytics

• Social listening

2. Voice of Customer Data Instead of using big and intimidating words to sound smart or recklessly referencing pop culture to sound cool, conversion copywriter Joanna Wiebe urges us to speak our customers' language. How?

Through the Voice of Customer (VOC) data.

VOC data is "qualitative and quantitative data from customers." We can trace the threads that run through our buyers' narratives by poring through customer reviews. As we gather this data, we can slowly see the patterns and recognize themes that can inform how we connect with our communities. Learn more about VOC data here

3. 5 Levels of Customer Awareness Why do ads fall flat and fail to rake in cash? Most likely, they didn't consider Eugene Schwartz's 5 Levels of Customer Awareness.

You won't kneel in front of a stranger, pull out a ring, and say, "Will you marry me?" That's simply absurd! Yet we write our ads the same way. We tell the person who barely knows our brand (sometimes, they're not even aware they have a problem, to begin with), "Pick me!" and expect that they would.

But by considering our customer's awareness level, we can meet them where they are and help them decide on a viable solution. 

Rookie Mistake 5: Believing Funnels Are Dead

I don't know when the funeral was held, but apparently, funnels are long dead.

Well, according to a quick Google search, that is. But the funny thing is when you click any of the articles claiming funnels are old news, they'll offer you an alternative that functions almost like—you guessed it—funnels.

They might call it something else or rename its elements, but it all comes down to this: it's a tool meant to lead your prospects into loyal customers.

Essentially, funnels are evergreen. The variables and names may change, but their core purpose is to help you build a system that gathers leads and nurtures them until they become your avid supporters.

Learning about marketing is like dating—you meet people who keep you on your toes, and it takes more than one date night to get to know them.

I'm sure there are still a lot of rookie mistakes that I have to unlearn along the way. Because growth is a till-death-do-us-part kind of process—it never ends until you do.

But seriously, if you have your fair share of rookie mistakes, don't be embarrassed. Being aware of these blunders means you've outgrown them and picked up great lessons.

Here's to lifelong learning!