Marketing projects like advertising, mail shots, websites or input into new products can go wrong. Even big companies make errors, and we’ve all seen examples of poorly targeted or ill-judged launches or offensive advertising campaigns.
Avoiding pitfalls and getting marketing just right means effective planning and understanding your audience. Few situations are unique, however, and adopting a template or design kit approach can help you avoid making costly and embarrassing errors.
Know your customer
The first step in any marketing effort is to understand who your target is. Are you aiming at a particular gender or age group, for example? Is there a specific need for the product, and what problem does it solve?
Once you’ve answered those questions, you need to think about how to reach your audience. Many people turn to the internet to solve this problem, but it’s important to understand that different groups use the web in different ways. What works for people aged in their 30s will be different for those in their 50s and 60s.
Good website design in Newport from a firm such as netcentrics.co.uk will help you to build an effective site, but you still need to understand your audience. If your site is intended to appeal to a particular demographic, consider how it meets their needs in terms not just of content but also accessibility.
Mobile internet usage is rapidly becoming the norm. It’s therefore important that the design of your site takes this into account. You need a design template that is capable of adapting to smaller screens and different orientations and still have the site attractive and usable.
Preventing waste
Perhaps the most famous marketing quote, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half,” is usually attributed to Lord Lever, head of the Lever Brothers soap giant. Whoever said it, it remains true for many businesses. Today the internet has given us many more tools to understand customers than ever before, but to make your marketing effective, you have to use them.
Adopting a template or design kit approach to building your marketing site can help you to avoid the mistakes others have made in the past and ensure that your content is right for your audience.