I recently started the book The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer, which looks at how and why we believe things. He points out that while we may like to think that we believe things because we’ve carefully considered the evidence and that our decisions about what to believe are based on logic, that’s not what we do.
“What happens is that the facts of the world are filtered by our brains through the colored lenses of worldviews, paradigms, theories, hypotheses, conjectures, hunches, biases, and prejudices we have accumulated through living. We then sort through the facts and select those that confirm what we already believe and ignore or rationalize away those that contradict our beliefs.” (p. 36)
He makes some excellent points. It’s fascinating to read about how our brains evolved for pattern recognition, and how that in turn has led to the way we form beliefs.
Reading it also got me thinking about beliefs that people have about marketing that aren’t true. Here are 7 common marketing beliefs that you should reconsider (if you haven’t already).
Social Media
Social media gets a lot of attention these days, and with good reason. Done well, it can generate a lot of traffic and interest in your product or service.
But it’s also not the only option, and holding onto false beliefs about it can hurt your business.
1: Not enough content
You may think you don’t have enough material to post on social media, but that’s not usually true.
For one thing, you don’t have to create all your own posts. It’s perfectly valid to share information from other sites.
You can also recycle information you’ve already posted. You may not want to use the exact same details, but if you make minor updates, you can certainly post it again a few weeks later. A combination of techniques should give you plenty of material.
2: Social media is all you need
If you get lots of likes and shares from social media, it can be tempting to think that you don’t need to do anything else. Unfortunately, that’s not the reality.
Remember, you don’t own or have any control over social media platforms. People who are following you today may decide to leave that platform next week, or the algorithms may change so that your followers don’t see your content as often.
Plus, you have no direct way to contact those people, and customizing content for certain demographics can be tricky.
Instead, it’s best to use some traditional marketing methods as well. Having an email list is extremely important, and it’s helpful to do some events or even some direct mail, along with your social media efforts.
Websites
Similar to social media, many people have misconceptions about websites and what they need to be like.
3: Websites aren’t necessary
The biggest myth about websites is that they’re not necessary. This goes back to the note about social media – even if someone finds you on a social media platform, if they’re interested, they’re going to want to visit your website.
Your website doesn’t need all the bells and whistles, but you do need to have one.
4: Only pictures and videos matter on a website
A lot of people are adding more pictures and videos to their websites these days, and that’s a good thing. Images help keep the reader engaged, and it’s nice to have the option of watching a video as long as it doesn’t bog down the website.
But your website still needs to say something in writing, and what it says matters.
Even if readers aren’t poring over every word, they will want to see that you provide basic, useful information in a way that’s easy to read.
Just as important, or even more important, is that search engine optimization (SEO) looks at what you write and if you’ve used keywords appropriately. Without good SEO, you may not even get visitors to your website, so pay attention to what you write and include.
5: People will spend a long time on a website to find what they want
It’s tempting to think that if someone is interested in what you have to offer, they’ll look all over your site until they find the right information. But again, that doesn’t happen in the real world.
Most people have short attention spans these days, in part because they know if they can’t find what they want on your site, they can go to another one that will probably be more user-friendly. And that’s exactly what you don’t want.
Instead, focus on providing relevant information up-front and in an easy-to-find way. If it’s not immediately on your homepage, make it very easy for people to find. Your call to action should be especially obvious and simple to use.
Remember, the goal isn’t to keep people on your website for hours. It’s to give them what they’re looking for as quickly as possible and do it in such a way that they have a good experience and want to visit again.
General Marketing
Even if you’ve got your social media and website down, you might still have some false beliefs about general marketing.
6: My product or service will sell itself
It’s great to believe in what you’re offering and be fully behind your product or service, but don’t let that fool you into thinking you don’t need to do some marketing. “If you build it, they will come,” doesn’t work outside of the movies.
If you don’t do some form of marketing, the people who want to buy your product or service will likely never find you, or at least not enough of them to make your business a success. Consider the fact that even large, successful companies like Apple and Disney do a lot of marketing – and if they need to do it, you do, too.
7: I’ll see marketing results immediately
When you’ve invested time and/or money into a marketing approach, it makes sense that you’d want to see results right away. But you usually won’t.
If you create an ad on social media, you might see someone click it soon, but it will be a while before you can determine how effective the ad is overall. Similarly, if you update your website for SEO, or use direct mail for a marketing campaign, you’ll have to wait at least a few months before you get any results.
Try to be patient and focus on the customers you already have while you wait for the results.
Avoid false marketing beliefs
You may have anecdotal evidence that some of these marketing ideas work, but if you look at them more critically, you’ll find that if they work at all, it’s only sporadically.
Instead, focus on tried and true methods. Use social media, combined with other efforts, and make sure you have a website that’s up to snuff for SEO. If you’re patient, you’ll get better and more consistent results than you would be following the anecdotes.