As we celebrate the spooky season, it’s essential for marketers and PR professionals to avoid falling into the haunting traps that can sabotage their efforts. At Konnect Agency, our experts have identified some common pitfalls we’ve seen in Public Relations, Social Media and influencer, Creative, and Paid marketing…and our tips on how to avoid them. Mark yourself as “safe” this spooky season and make sure you don’t succumb to these haunting marketing mishaps.
Public Relations
- Not Reading the (Industry) Room: It’s tempting to craft pitches that focus solely on your client’s interests, but beware of coming across as spammy or self-serving. Instead, aim to provide added value to the industry at large. Consider what insights or consumer behaviors your client can offer that resonate with the broader context.
- Open-Ended Pitches: Editors are bombarded with pitches daily, and their time is precious. Avoid sending open-ended questions or passive requests. Get straight to the point and include a clear Call to Action (CTA) for the email recipient. Make it easy for them to understand why your pitch is worth their attention.
- Not Doing Your Homework: Neglecting research is a grave mistake in PR. Take the time to curate a well-thought-out and methodical pitch list. Sometimes, the most successful pitches come from targeting a handful of well-researched journalists who are genuinely interested in your client’s story.
- Ignoring Media Relations: Building and nurturing relationships with the media is essential. Don’t let ghostly emails be your only interaction with journalists. Engage with them on social media, attend industry events, and maintain a genuine connection beyond pitching.
Social Media & Influencer
- Tagging Instead of Collaborating: Don’t just tag influencers or brand partners; aim to create genuine collaboration. Instagram’s Collaborator Tool can help you reach new audiences by leveraging the impression power of both brands.
- Not Analyzing Data: Ignoring data is like stumbling around in the dark. Use analytics to track the performance of your social and influencer campaigns. Understand what works and then adapt your strategy to include other variations.
- Hiding with Trends Instead of Standing Out: While it’s essential to stay current with trends, don’t get lost in the copy-and-paste crowd. Strive to stand out by putting a unique twist on popular themes, ensuring your brand’s voice remains distinctive.
- Overlooking Micro-Influencers: Micro-influencers often have highly engaged and niche followings. Don’t dismiss them in favor of mega-influencers. Consider partnering with micro-influencers who align with your brand and target audience.
Creative
- Neglecting Creative Consistency: Inconsistency in branding and messaging can confuse your audience. Maintain a consistent creative theme and tone across all your marketing materials to establish a strong brand identity.
- Lack of Storytelling: Effective marketing often revolves around storytelling. Craft compelling narratives that resonate with your audience and evoke emotions. Stories are memorable and can set your brand apart.
- Written-Only Communication: Sometimes our verbal or written descriptions of visual ideas can be contradictory or at least unhelpful. “Vintage” to a Gen Xer can mean something completely different to a Gen Zer. Creating visual moodboards can help provide clarity by sharing visual examples with your creative team. Sometimes, seeing is believing.
Paid Digital
- Paid:
- Ignoring A/B Testing: A/B testing is a powerful tool to optimize your paid advertising campaigns. Don’t overlook this process; it can help you refine your targeting, ad copy, and visuals to achieve better results.
- Ignoring Important KPIs: While raw ad clicks are important, they don’t tell the whole story. Consider other metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, return on ad spend (ROAS), and customer acquisition cost (CAC) to measure the true success of your paid campaigns.
- Not Setting Clear Goals: Without clear objectives, your paid campaigns may meander without purpose. Defining specific goals will better allow you to set relevant campaign objectives that target important key performance indicators (KPIs) to see the greatest success.
Conclusion
As you embark on your marketing endeavors, remember to avoid these eerie traps in Public Relations, Social/Influencer, Creative, and Paid marketing. By staying vigilant and implementing best practices, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are a treat rather than a trick this spooky season.