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5 Marketing Mistakes You’re Probably Making (And How to Fix Them)

Marketing is the lifeblood of any business. It’s how you connect with customers, build your brand, and ultimately drive sales. However, it’s easy to fall into common traps. Here are five marketing mistakes you might be making and how to fix them.

Mistake #1: Not Knowing Your Audience

  • The Mistake: One of the biggest mistakes in marketing is not having a clear understanding of your target audience. Without this crucial knowledge, your campaigns can fall flat and fail to engage or resonate with potential customers.
  • Fix It: Do your homework! Get to know your audience through market research. Create detailed buyer personas that include demographic info, interests, pain points, and buying behaviour. Use tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and surveys to gather data. Tailor your marketing messages and strategies to fit the needs and preferences of your target audience.

Mistake #2: Inconsistency Across Channels

  • The Mistake: Your brand voice and message vary wildly across social media, email marketing, and your website. This creates confusion for your audience.
  • Fix It: Develop a brand style guide. This document ensures consistent use of logos, fonts, colours, and voice across all marketing materials. Consistency in your branding helps build recognition and trust with your audience. Train your team to follow the style guide and regularly review your content to keep a cohesive brand image.

Mistake #3: Focusing Solely on Sales

  • The Mistake: Being too pushy with sales in your marketing efforts. Constantly pushing products and services can turn off your audience and hurt your brand’s reputation.
  • Fix It: Provide value through your marketing. Create content that educates, entertains, or solves problems for your audience. Use storytelling to build an emotional connection with your customers. Engage with your audience on social media by responding to comments and messages, and join in on conversations relevant to your industry. By building relationships and trust, you’ll create loyal customers who are more likely to buy from you.

Mistake #4: Focusing on Features, Not Benefits

  • The Mistake: You highlight product features without explaining how they solve customer problems. Your audience may not understand the value of your products or services.
  • Fix It: Lead with the “why.” Explain how your product or service improves your customer’s life. Focus on the benefits they’ll experience by using your offering.

Mistake #5: Overlooking Mobile Optimisation

  • The Mistake: Forgetting about mobile users by not optimising your website and content for mobile devices. With more and more people using smartphones, this can mean missing out on a lot of potential customers.
  • Fix It: Mobile-friendly website. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly with responsive design. Test your site on various devices to ensure it loads quickly and functions properly. Optimise your content for mobile by using shorter paragraphs, larger fonts, and easily clickable buttons. Also, consider mobile-specific marketing strategies like SMS campaigns and mobile ads to reach your audience wherever they are.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone, it’s easy to make marketing mistakes without all the know-how. That’s why, many businesses choose to outsource their marketing, rather than try to tackle it on their own.

For a free virtual marketing ideas session with marketing experts, call us on 01962 600 147 or email info@tlc-business.co.uk

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Best Length For a Blog Post

Producing blogs is a great way to share expertise, drive traffic to your website and build engagement. If this sounds like something you want for your business, the next question people typically ask is, “what is the best length for a blog post?”

 

Getting the answer to this right is important because it has implications for SEO, engagement and more.

Before starting to write a blog, you must consider the collection factors that will influence how well your blog performs. Your audience, the structure of the post, the topic and the promotional channel are all elements that will determine the ‘perfect’ length for your blog.

You are probably now saying, “that is all great, but how many words should I write?” If so, let’s dive in deeper and determine what the best length for a blog post really is.

 

Is there a perfect length for a blog post?

You probably already knew this, but the truth is, the best length for a blog post completely varies depending on the content you are producing. Sounds like a cop out, right? But a word count does not define how meaningful (and effective) a piece of text is.

 

For example, if the topic is frequently asked about and searched for by many users online, a substantial (we’ll get on to what this actually looks like in a second) blog is ideal. Whereas, if it is a quick promotion of a service or a product you are advertising, it is best to keep it short and simple.

 

“Give us a number!” we hear you shout….

 

Blog word counts and what they are best for:

  • 50-300 words: These are short and snappy posts that tend to get more of the comments. Shorter posts are great conversation starters. They are straight-forward, and although they might not get many shares online, they are easy to read and create on a regular basis. 50-300 words are most effective for selling a product or a service and getting a reader to take a specific ‘Call to Action’ (CTA) i.e. downloading an e-book or signing up to an email list.
  • 300-600 words: These posts are the most common blogging length. They are still quick, easy to read and to the point. This length is a popular middle-ground for social media shares and engagement.
  • 750 words: This length is typically used for professional journalism, especially for newsletters. The length is great for shares on social media.
  • 1000-1600 words: This length is the most popular for blogging platforms and mostly used to address audience questions and solve someone’s problem. According to Medium, a collaborative writing platform, the ideal length for a blog is 1,600 words (or takes 7 minutes to read). A 1,600-word blog can be the perfect length as it gives the writer enough leeway to explain the chosen topic in detail, whilst also keeping the reader engaged. There is an opportunity to get lots of engagement on these posts and a high number of shares on social media. The most significant factor for this length is making sure the topic is interesting and solves a frequently experienced problem.
  • 1,600-2,500 words: The highest-ranking articles on Google are typically around this length. These posts can rank well on search engines. They help a website’s SEO by increasing the time spent on page. They can also encourage a new reader to join your mailing list to receive future insightful content. If the chosen topic is interesting to your audience and addresses a topic that readers are continuously searching around, the blog has a good shot at being a hit.

 

What is more important that blog length?

Relevance to your audience! It is irrelevant how many words your blog is, if it doesn’t address a relevant issue or topic to your target audience. We could write the most wonderfully researched 2,500 word blog on cultivating roses in a small garden, but if we are looking to engage with and build an audience of small business owners, the blog just won’t cut it.

 

So, what is the best length for your next blog post?

Well that depends on what outcome you are trying to achieve. Shorter content (at least 300 words) is the ideal blog post length if you are looking to create regular content on a wide range of topics that encourages visitors to take some form of call to action. It also makes it more practical to create on a regular and consistent basis.

 

Whereas, if you want to create a piece of content that will significantly improve your SEO and position you as an expert on that particular topic, you should consider devoting additional time to creating quality, long-form content of 1,600+ words. Less frequent posts, with deeper, more detailed content, can help you win at the SEO game.

 

All that being said, whilst we understand that having a word count target can be helpful, the bottom-line is, write what you are passionate about. Don’t focus on the length of your posts too much. It is better to produce high quality text with fewer words, rather than ‘rambling’ on for the sake of a higher word count. And with that in mind, I’ll shut up now!


To arrange a free virtual marketing ideas session with our friendly marketing team, call 01962 600 147 or email info@tlc-business.co.uk

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Advantages of working remotely

This remote working has its perks! Caroline, our Senior Graphic Designer, has been working from France the last few weeks. Not a bad view!

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TLC Complete the Tree Top Challenge!

Team TLC recently met for a day of fun and adventure at Go Ape, situated in the beautiful Itchen Valley Country Park. Following a safety briefing, the team set off along the high ropes, swinging, climbing and zip-lining between the trees! We then tucked into a delicious BBQ lunch in the sun. Recharged and raring to go, we then took part in an outdoor escape room that saw us work together to solve puzzles and riddles to save a monkey, who had been kidnapped by poachers. We all had a great time, meeting face-to-face once again and we were over the moon to hold the record for the fastest escape room time!

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#StayHome – How Team TLC have gone remote

It’s business as (un)usual for Team TLC. Like many other businesses, we packed up our laptops and made the move from the office to our living rooms last month.

For a team that’s used to collaborating face-to-face on a constant basis, working from home has been a tough but useful adjustment. As a result, we’ve been holding a daily Zoom call each morning to catch up and put a smile on everyone’s faces.

Since the move, we’ve been setting up our new workspaces and enjoying the extra time spent with our pampered pets. They’re proving to be a popular topic in the team WhatsApp and make great quality control managers as they keep a watchful eye over our work!

We’re here to help

While we settle into the new norm, we’ve been making some changes to our service offering to ensure we can continue to help our fellow SMEs with marketing support during this challenging time. As a result, we’ve switched to virtual Marketing Ideas Sessions with regular slots available to book for free over the coming weeks.

If you have any questions or would like to speak to a member of the team, our phone lines and emails remain open. Get in touch with us on 01962 600147 or info@tlc-business.co.uk.

From all of us, stay safe and keep well.
Team TLC

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Annual ‘Marketing for SMEs’ event enjoys a great turnout

TLC Business Winchester Marketing for SMEs seminar
The team at TLC Business extends its gratitude to the guests who attended our ‘Marketing for SMEs’ event on Thursday 13th February at Holiday Inn Winchester. We hope we achieved our aim and created a useful and enjoyable session full of pointers to help you improve your marketing in 2020.

During the event, TLC Business’ Managing Director, Josh Spencer, presented the latest marketing trends SMEs can use to help increase enquires and grow their businesses. Josh touched upon topics such as effective use of social media for SMEs, changes to SEO and how to rank in search engines, and why remarketing should not be overlooked as a conversion strategy.
 
We saw SMEs from across Hampshire and beyond, from a diverse range of sectors, attend the event with a view to discover how their marketing can be improved in 2020. Sectors included accountancy, IT, PCB assembly, marine engineering, and insurance.
 
If you missed this year’s seminar and would like more information on future events including our free marketing ideas sessions, let us know by emailing Sophie at sophiewells@tlc-business.co.uk or give us a call on 01962 600 147. 
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The TLC Business Annual Marketing Lunch 2020

Essential Marketing Insights for SMEs ‘How to get the most out of your marketing buck’.

It’s that time of year again for the TLC Business Annual Marketing Lunch, where we will be providing SMEs in Hampshire with useful insights, tips, guidance and advice around how to get the most from their marketing budget in the year ahead.

This year’s free annual marketing seminar will be held at the Holiday Inn Winchester on Thursday 13th February 2020 from 12pm-2pm. Full details of the event can be found below but if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Spaces for this event are limited, therefore you must book your place in advance to confirm your attendance.

You can book your place here.

Please note: this event is not eligible for other marketing or creative agencies.

Event details:

Date: Thursday 13th February 2020
Time: 12pm – 2pm
Location: The Monarch Suite, Holiday Inn Winchester, Telegraph Way, Morn Hill, Winchester, Hampshire, SO21 1HZ
Refreshments: Buffet lunch & refreshments provided
Price: Free

Topics we’ll cover:

– Social media – how to make it work for your business
– PPC (Pay per click advertising) – why it is an important part of your marketing mix
– SEO (Search engine optimisation) – the fundamentals
– Email marketing – is it still relevant?
– Content – what should we be creating?
– How to stand out from the crowd
– How can I find out what is working?

We hope to see you there!

 

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TLC take on The Crystal Maze

TLC headed up to London last friday to the take on The Crystal Maze LIVE Experience challenge for our most recent team day out! As part of the 90 minute experience, the team were taken through four zones: Aztec, Industrial, Futuristic and Medieval. Each zone contained several games, testing our skill, physical & mental ability – as well as a mystery category! We had a fantastic time and overall the team managed to collect 7 crystals and almost 200 golden tickets in the dome.

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Caroline designs some delicious biscuits

Smile! Our graphic designer, Caroline, has been at it again with her gorgeous biscuit designs – which made for a lovely surprise for the TLC team this morning.

 

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