Sometimes, it’s a little fun to turn things upside down and discuss how to fail. It’s a different way of zeroing in on mistakes to avoid.

With this in mind, here’s what you can do to scare your customers off with your digital marketing strategies:

1. Try Not to Upset Anyone

Now, we’re not suggesting you should try to irritate your customers. Yet, many small businesses struggle in believing everyone is a potential customer and thus timidly describe the value of their products and services: not wanting to scare anyone away.

By trying to keep everyone happy, you actually hurt your business. Remember how you initially launched your business to serve a specific niche? That’s what marketing’s all about, too! So, in your marketing efforts, be sure to focus on a specific kind of customer.

If it’s other types of customers you’re after, you’ll need to write specifically for them using separate messaging.

2. Buy Lists to Market To

If you’re looking to do a little old-fashioned marketing via snail mail, buying lists can really cause you a lot of trouble. Why? Because many of these aren’t nearly as accurate as they claim to be.

Instead, if you engage in direct mail marketing, build your own list to achieve a higher level of accuracy: which is well worth your time and the corresponding ROI.

3. Discuss Your Products and Services

This one’s actually more of a marketing timing issue. Early on in the process, don’t ramble on about your products and services just yet.

Why?

Because customers don’t want your product or service right now. Instead, they want a solution to their problem. That’s why you should first talk about their problem, in turn showing them you understand their situation and can provide help, accordingly.

This builds a connection. After this is established, the time is right to discuss how your products and services can solve their problem better than any other alternative solution.

4. Use the Wrong Channels

One key to online marketing is making sure you’re present where your audience is. If you target consumers, for example, LinkedIn likely isn’t the best place to employ your marketing efforts (although it’s appropriate for consumer-based marketing in some cases).

Nevertheless, the difficulty lies in that some channels serve multiple audiences. For example, while Pinterest primarily appeals to women, it has a growing male segment as well. Facebook can appeal to nearly any audience, but it continues to force marketers to pony up money to get their content in front of eyeballs on the platform.

Wrapping Up

It’s important to keep in mind these key marketing mistakes that turn your audience off. Avoid them at all costs and make sure you have an experienced SEO specialist by your side to do the same.