No matter how sharp you are or how carefully you plan, mistakes happen – that’s just life and that’s just business. But the trick isn’t to avoid every single mistake; it’s to catch the ones that are really going to drag your business to a halt and cause a lot of damage. With that in mind, keep reading to find out more about some of the most common types of mistakes and what to do about them.
Marketing
You know that feeling when you pour time and money into a marketing campaign and it doesn’t end up doing anything for you? It’s frustrating, but it does happen, and it may well have happened to you. Often marketing mistakes don’t actually happen because of a lack of creativity – they come from skipping over the strategy bit and only being creative, and that’s generally not going to help much.
Maybe you’re targeting the wrong audience or using the wrong platform, or it could be your content doesn’t connect with the people you need it to, for example. And in the end, these things add up and you’ll have a lot of missed opportunities. To fix it, you need to take the time to look at your data, test your messages, and be consistent. If you’re able to build relationships with your marketing, it’s bound to pay off.
Technology
Tech is something all businesses need to use, to a greater or lesser extent, but when it goes wrong, it can really throw a spanner in the works. A tiny misconfiguration or outdated security setting can cause a lot of chaos, and could end up costing you money or even your reputation.
That’s why it’s so important to set things up properly in the first place. Take emails, for example – if they’re not doing what they’re meant to do, if they’re not getting where they’re meant to go, or if they keep ending up in spam, you’ve got a problem. However, something like understanding the Microsoft DMARC requirements means you can make sure all your business emails end up in the right inboxes, and they won’t be flagged as suspicious, which will help to build trust and build your reputation.
Your Team
And of course, we need to talk about the human side of things because you’re sure to have humans working in your business (even if it’s just you). Even with the best tools and the most impressive branding, your business is only as strong as the people behind it, and when your team isn’t working together, you’re going to get a lot of mistakes, missed tasks, and tension – and that’s something that’s going to affect your bottom line.
Sometimes the problem might be a communication issue, or it could be that no one’s quite sure what their roles are or who should do what, for example. Whatever it is, a team that’s not pulling together is just going to slow everything down, and that’s why it’s important to do regular check-ins, give honest feedback, and make sure people have got the tools they need to do their jobs. These will all make a bigger difference than you might realise.
