Today’s guest post comes from Susan Young, President of AimFire Marketing. We thank Susan for this great contribution to our blog.

Although this sounds a little harsh, I thought I would share with you some of my greatest marketing pet peeves. Not listed in any particular order, these are some very common activities I’ve found among sales and marketing executives and business owners over the years. Are you guilty of any of them?

1. Using too much technical jargon in marketing materials.
2. Relying heavily on networking to get new business and not having the basic marketing tools to close the sale.
3. Being reactive with all marketing activities instead of developing a marketing plan, and then wondering why the sales results aren’t there (See my article on shotgun marketing).
4. Being afraid or hesitant to invest a little in marketing, even though your #1 goal is to increase sales!
5. Focusing too much of the marketing copywriting on the product or service features and not on the customer benefits.
6. Saying “We really need to update our website” and then not doing anything about it.
7. Not using built-in website and email newsletter tracking programs to gather sales and customer intelligence.
8. Keeping the marketing team out of the loop with what the sales team is doing and viceversa.
9. Giving up too early on a prospect, rather than sending multiple communications over time and eventually getting the sale.
10. Not dedicating enough time to focus on marketing activities (and always making excuses why you have no time)

How many mistakes were you guilty of performing? Do you have other mistakes you’d like to share, or can you relate to some of these? Feel free to send your feedback and ideas!

Susan Young is president of AimFire Marketing, an Indianapolis-area marketing, public relations and website strategies firm that works with growing companies to implement effective marketing communications campaigns. You can contact Susan and learn more about AimFire Marketing by visiting
www.aimfiremarketing.com.