How often have you sifted through Facebook or YouTube videos of outright failure? You might even have had a laugh. It’s like it’s just easier to become known for terrible marketing than it is to successfully grow a brand.
There are even companies out there right now capitalizing on the whole “train wreck” phenomenon by intentionally designing poor marketing strategies.
Poor marketing is a big problem. Ineffective, un-optimized, and outdated efforts are counterproductive. They’re downright harmful to your brand. So, why does poor marketing even exist?
One word: charlatans.
The Big, Wide World of Marketing Charlatans
This is what it comes down to. The online world has gone nuts. Every day, some bright spark charlatan or even an agency worth of charlatans pop online to do a very quick marketing course. They might even splash out on a full weekend course. Suddenly, they have a certificate (pretty much for watching a few videos and maybe reading a tutorial or two) and they’re passing themselves off as fully-fledged marketing agencies that will deliver astounding results.
It’s trash. In reality, they’re not only wasting your time and marketing budget, but they’re going to destroy your brand and do irreversible damage to your medical establishment.
We like to call these “agencies” marketing charlatans and there’s heaps of damage they can do to you.
Let’s just take a closer look at the risks of plowing your marketing money into a newbie agency.
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Cookie-Cutter Strategies
Your clinic and its needs are unique. These marketing charlatans have done a quick course. They’ve learned a cookie-cutter approach to marketing, at best, but they have the gift of the gab and they can be incredibly convincing if you’ve never dealt with professional marketers.
But you never want to sign up to a pitch that’s not in line with your business model. In fact, listen very carefully to their pitch and ask plenty of in-depth questions to figure out how this “newbie” agency intends to build your medical business.
For example, as a clinic, your practice has location-specific marketing needs and depends, quite possibly, on a carefully put together mobile strategy. You might not have much need for expensive and time-consuming link building or SEO. What you will need is a localized campaign tailored to your unique offering.
Your marketing strategy has to consider your location, your patient’s demographics, and your services. It needs to be a tailored and highly specific approach that meets your needs and brings in business.
A cookie-cutter approach will destroy you. Without precise targeting, your marketing is just a waste of money. At best, you’ll break-even. At worst, you’ll spend a fortune on all the wrong tactics.
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Distraction from Your Business’s Offering
Let’s focus on digital marketing. A poor strategy can destroy your brand’s effectiveness, reducing your offering to a mockery. So, what happens is that, regardless of whether or not an audience is familiar with your business, poor digital marketing distracts from what you actually offer.
Take the case of HMV-All Access as an example. The UK entertainment retailer made the mistake of handing over its Twitter account to staff members. The brand then dismissed a large group of employees, forgetting that they had access to the Twitter account. The staff did what any disgruntled employee would do and took to the page to reveal insider problems. The brand became famous for controversy and unhappy ex-staff members. More people now know HMV-All Access for that mishap than for what the brand actually has to offer.
What we’re trying to say here is that it’s very easy to get lost behind bad branding carried out by an inexperienced marketing agency.
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Poor Channel Suggestions
It’s a marketing agency’s job to specialize in particular marketing channels. That’s pretty standard. An agency needs to build expertise in a niche, which is all good. But where charlatans catch you is that they recommend what they’ve learned or may be good at rather than what you actually need.
SEO charlatans are often the culprits. When a business asks about SEO, they’re sold SEO. Yet, SEO as a marketing technique may not be the right investment for you. Perhaps you’re better off with direct response marketing via Twitter or Facebook.
Another poor channel suggestion we often come across is marketing automation. Just the thought to automating your marketing may seem attractive, and not needing to be involved much sounds pretty sweet. But what happens if your prospect pool is tiny or your particular sales cycle is somewhat short? An intensive inbound marketing campaign is going to flop, and flop fast.
Online marketing should provide you with a myriad of enticing options. But not every option is going to be relevant for your brand. You never want to be pressured into investing in unnecessary channels and wasting your marketing budget.
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Credibility Damage
When sub-par marketing marks your brand, you lose all credibility. Put all three of the above points together and that’s exactly what these charlatans will do to you.
Credibility is essential when it comes to patients choosing to support you. Credibility is based on a sense of legitimacy and trust and it depends largely on your brand coming across as risk-free and reliable. Patients often assume that outdated marketing strategies equal an outdated business. Similarly, if your marketing campaign is cluttered, garbled, and downright confusing, they’re going to assume your business is that way, too.
It’s these assumptions that result in you losing credibility with your target market. Since there are plenty of other brands offering similar products or services, it’s easy enough for people to go somewhere where they will feel supported, understood, and respected.
Don’t Do Your Brand a Disservice
Marketing budgets are tight. We get that. But your marketing agency owes it to you to present high-quality efforts that really do produce results, reach your market, and maximize the impact of your brand.
Charlatans who have taken a quick online marketing course cannot do this for you. You need an agency that takes its time, does its research and has an exceptional impact on your business.
We’ve been around for 20 years and proudly helped build multiple 7-figure businesses from the start. We know what works and we understand the importance of a tailored marketing strategy for your brand.
Don’t let your brand become famous for marketing fails.
