The Worst Marketing Mistakes You Can Make – Part 1

Marketing can be a very tricky and delicate task. Your objective should be to influence the way people think and make choices, but if you go about it the wrong way, you could jeopardize your entire strategy.

Here is the first installment of a two-part post about the worst marketing mistake you can make. According to John Sachs, founder of Free Range Studios and author of Winning the Story Wars, if you avoid these mistakes, you can lower the chance of your marketing efforts going awry.

Vanity

According to Sachs, the ancient Greek story of Narcissus illustrates the first marketing mistake. Narcissus, the best looking hunter in the land became so obsessed with his own appearance and reflection in a pool that he either remained immobilized there forever, or fell in and drowned, depending on which version of the story you are more accustomed to.

For marketers these days, the enormous risk of being too vain is being set aside. “It’s hard to tell a story when you’re the main character and everything else is a background for your character’s greatness,” says Sachs. “You’re going to sound largely irrelevant to audiences who hear 3,500 marketing messages a day.” A better approach that Sachs insists is to create a story idea where your customer is the hero and the main subject.

Authority

In the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen, the emperor depends on the authority of his tailors who convince him he is clothed in cloth so fine that only the wise can see it. Because he is too embarrassed to admit that he does not see anything there, the emperor then finds himself nude in front of everyone.

The issue with relying on authority has a couple of issues, according to Sachs. First of all, experts have been wrong about things time and time again that the public is automatically apprehensive when it comes to trusting them, Even worse, if you rely on the facts too much, you can miss a chance at making a meaning connection with your customers. “If you can reach people on emotion and values, that’s a more powerful way of getting them marching toward you,” says Sachs.

Next week we will dive into the second half of this blog post and tell you about the other marketing mistakes that you’ll want to avoid.

Enjoyed this blog post from Global Bend? Get more social media and SEO tips delivered directly to your website. Sign up for our newsletter today or subscribe to our RSS feed!