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What is the Most Costly Mistake You Have Made in Your Marketing Campaigns?

by MsMotivation1
12 replies
Hey everybody,

All of us here know that marketing a business is one of the most expensive components of owning a business.

So I thought it would be nice if we could share some of the costly mistakes we've made along the way when it comes to marketing.

Answer these questions and give any other info you want:
  1. What did you do wrong?
  2. What did you do to fix it?
  3. What did you learn from it?
Maybe we can save each other from doing the same things!

OK, here's one of mine:
  1. What did you do wrong? When I first started, I sent out a direct mail sales letter with the domain name of my squeeze page spelled all WRONG.
  2. What did you do to fix it? There was nothing I could do. Talk about a waste. Got a few calls anyway luckily - and they let me know that they had tried to go to my website but it didn't work.
  3. What did you learn from it? To ALWAYS check, double check, and triple check my marketing materials. It hasn't happened since.
#campaigns #costly #made #marketing #mistake
  • Profile picture of the author fcf360
    Spelling your website wrong is not what I would call a "mistake".. I would say its an "unforced error"..

    My biggest mistake was spending too much on PPC to drive traffic to my sites by overpaying for some very expensive keywords. It was quickly fixed and I've gotten better at at keyword research to keep that costs minimized. Also, I learned that free traffic tends to be the best traffic after all.
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  • Profile picture of the author AmyKay
    Yup, PPC. I'm sure a lot of people will answer with that. Oh, and some PPV. Just jumped in too fast. With more research and experience, though, they are great.
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    • Profile picture of the author surgematrix
      I agree with you Amy. The most costly mistake we made was our PPC campaigns. We were running these campaigns without any ROI software. What we are doing now is, we have the tracking ROI software on our server and it creates a unique URL which we are using to track the effectiveness of the campaign. We do have the opportunity now to increase our advertising budget where we see productive. This method is saving us a bunch of money.
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  • Profile picture of the author filiks
    what i did wrong
    when i started off with my internet marketing i wanted to know all there is to know so i started off with reading all sort of books by the so called "gurus" that i delayed in putting them to action and i got bugged down by the sheer amount of info

    how i fixed it
    well for two years i did not do anything with what i read nor what i assume i knew but later i threw everything into the trash can and just follow with one method

    what did i learn
    read less more action!!!
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    • Profile picture of the author MsMotivation1
      Ohhh... I totally agree! This is one mistake I made as well.
      But not anymore... you learn after a while.

      I never got up the courage to try PPC thank goodness. I'm sure that would've been another mistake on my list.

      Originally Posted by filiks View Post

      what i did wrong
      when i started off with my internet marketing i wanted to know all there is to know so i started off with reading all sort of books by the so called "gurus" that i delayed in putting them to action and i got bugged down by the sheer amount of info

      how i fixed it
      well for two years i did not do anything with what i read nor what i assume i knew but later i threw everything into the trash can and just follow with one method

      what did i learn
      read less more action!!!
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      > Offline PLR: TIME-SAVING, TOP-QUALITY Offline PLR Content
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  • Profile picture of the author iSoftware
    HANDS DOWN IT WAS DOING AFFILIATE MARKETING WITHOUT LISTBUILDING EARLY IN THE GAME

    This great podcast (not mine just good) really spells out some of the dangers. It's not to be missed!

    Build A List Of Targeted Leads For Long-Term Online Success 5/18/2009 - Steve Weber | Internet Radio | Blog Talk Radio
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  • Profile picture of the author indexphp
    Not taking the time to set up my tracking for paid traffic campaigns, whether it be PPC/PPV/Banners whatever. It's easy to get excited and want to throw something up for a quick test, but it sucks when you dont know which element caused something to work.

    I learned that Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance
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  • Profile picture of the author TheAnnoyingOrange
    1. What did you do wrong?
    What I did "wrong" was to not start earlier, had I done this then I would be much better off right now.
    1. What did you do to fix it?
    Right now? I am taking ACTION! I wrote out a plan and goals and am now setting out to achieve them.
    1. What did you learn from it?
    I now understand that I have a huge opportunity before me and that I am still very young.
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  • Profile picture of the author bay37
    Trusting that the CPA Networks have their **** in check (the green "live" bar next to an offer and a working landing page doesn't necessarily mean that the offer is "on"). Apparently you have to *ask* your affiliate manager every time you're about to test a new offer.

    I set it up and left it running overnight. Don't really care about losing $$ as long as I'm collecting data, but sending over 2000 clicks to a dead offer... sucks. Should've done a test lead.

    Advice? Only run with reputable CPA networks.
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    • Profile picture of the author MsMotivation1
      Wow, thanks for that tip, Bay!
      I'm just starting in CPA... when you say "reputable CPA networks" do you recommend any in particular? Right now, I'm planning to work with Offerweb, Neverblue, and Maxbounty... I'm also accepted into a few others.

      Originally Posted by bay37 View Post

      Trusting that the CPA Networks have their **** in check (the green "live" bar next to an offer and a working landing page doesn't necessarily mean that the offer is "on"). Apparently you have to *ask* your affiliate manager every time you're about to test a new offer.

      I set it up and left it running overnight. Don't really care about losing $$ as long as I'm collecting data, but sending over 2000 clicks to a dead offer... sucks. Should've done a test lead.

      Advice? Only run with reputable CPA networks.
      Signature
      > Offline PLR: TIME-SAVING, TOP-QUALITY Offline PLR Content
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  • Profile picture of the author mainstreetcm
    What did you do wrong?
    I stupidly tried to run an ad on Facebook targeting all women ages 18-24 and decided it would be a good idea to pay for impressions instead of clicks with a budget of just $20 a day. Within 6 minutes of my ad being approved I had burned through my entire advertising budget for the day. I received ONE click.

    What did you do to fix it?
    Nothing. By the time I read the email that my ad had been approved it was too late. My $20 was gone and my ONE visitor bounced within seconds of hitting the site.

    What did you learn from it?
    That I need to utilize the freaking awesome demographic information available through Facebook to better target my ads. And that if I am going with a broad ad I sure as hell won't be selecting to pay per impression. Clicks only!

    Since then I've been pretty successful with running a Netflix ad for my local area's users only (all of our movie rental places shut down).
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