A lot has changed in the marketing stratosphere in the past decade. Even the word ‘marketing’ itself can now be referring to dozens of ideologies, including digital marketing and advertising. Advances in technology now allow countless ways to market yourself, your brand, your product, whatever you could possibly dream of.
If you want to effectively sell a product or service, you absolutely need a good, up to date understanding of all aspects of marketing. Whether you’re just starting out in the marketing profession, or you’re a seasoned marketer, you may be surprised to learn how many commonly held beliefs about marketing that just aren’t true. Some have never been true, some used to be true, and some have a little bit of truth in them.
1. Your logo is the most important part of your brand
This one holds some truth, in that logos are an important piece of your brand. Logos are a visual representation of who you are, they’re the face of your company and they distinguish you from competition. Every successful brand can be recognized by their logo alone. However, while a well-designed logo establishes professionalism, no company finds success on a logo alone. In order to build a brand, you must have much more. After all, what is a company’s brand? It’s the overall feel of your company, not just one piece.
2. Email marketing is dead
If you’re young or new to marketing, this is an understandable misconception. Out of all the technological forms of communication, email seems like a dinosaur. It makes sense you’d believe old technologies would be dying out to make room for new ones. However, the fact that email started so simple and has managed to stay necessary and relevant through innovation just speaks to how powerful it is. As of May 2022, there are over 4 billion email users worldwide. That’s a huge market to be utilized. It also shows the importance of email marketing.
Is email marketing effective, really? If you’re looking for proof, according to Campaign Monitor, email marketing has a return on investment of 4400%. That’s better than most social media ROIs. Any successful brand or professional marketer will tell you email marketing is more popular and effective now than ever. And it’s only expected to increase. The benefits of email marketing speak for themselves.
3. Articles only purpose is informational
Blogs/articles are a common and necessary component of many companies. It wouldn’t be unbelievable to think the only point of these articles is for informational purposes – why else would someone write an article on a topic other than to educate? The answer is SEO. SEO, or search engine optimization, is a form of the practice of boosting the quantity and quality of website traffic. By using keywords pulled from relevant search results, you can increase brand exposure and website traffic. Brands with a good SEO content marketing strategy will reap the benefits with higher click rates and heavier, relevant website traffic.
If you know your audience well enough, you know what they will be searching for on search engines, and you can use this knowledge to deliver content they want. SEO is one of the most useful tools in marketing that consistently improves engagement. Writing and posting relevant articles about your brand on a content marketing blog with SEO content marketing in mind is an easy and very effective way to utilize the feature.
4. People want customized and personalized experiences
This one also holds some truth. There is definitely power to personalizing a customer’s experience – who doesn’t want to feel like they’re not just one of a million other people being marketed to? Research shows modern consumers, especially millennials, do prefer a brand that can give them a unique, personal, and custom experience. However, there is so much more than just personalization that consumers want out of brands.
Friendly service, convenience, speed, and knowledge are actually proven to be much more important to consumers. When browsing or planning to buy a product online, customers want their experience to be seamless. You could give them the most customized experience ever, but if you have a bad website or slow, poor customer service, no one’s going to buy your product. Customer-friendly online service must be kept in mind as you’re designing a website and planning your marketing campaigns.
