Is your business suffering from marketing addiction?

Do you find yourself constantly indulging in various marketing tools? Is the sustainability of your business being affected despite your ‘best’ marketing efforts?

If you notice that you are being sucked into the idea of omnipresence that social media marketing paints for you, you need to take a step back and observe the situation of your company, be it a startup or a well-established big business. It’s quite possible you are suffering from what one may call marketing addiction.

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See if you can recognise any of these signs.

You’re following the herd mentality

Take this for example. It has lately become a common practice for most businesses, big and small, to jump onto the social media marketing bandwagon. Organisations unhesitatingly invest in the advertising platforms that the likes of Google and Facebook offer. The advantages of the same notwithstanding, the trend now seems to be reaching a crescendo wherein businesses appear to be buying into the idea even if it might be short-sighted. You might ignore a relatively low conversion rate, irrelevant targeting and difficulty in catching people’s attention in a bid to just get yourself out on social media.

There’s no strategy-driven marketing

Having an unclear business marketing strategy (but going on to advertise with everything that’s available) can also be indicative of marketing addiction. Often, companies get drawn to the lucrativeness of the platform rather than its merits. A classic example is companies getting attracted to a huge volume of potential buyers when, in reality, they have little purchasing power. A clear strategy needs to be laid out based on the target audience, expected returns, spending limit and similar factors before executing any advertising or branding campaign.

You’re marketing to survive rather than to build

If your business is doing some last-ditch marketing to save itself rather than to build or expand, there might be something seriously wrong. In this stage, the cost of marketing stops mattering and financial freedom starts dwindling. Take a step back and pull the plug on a few marketing tactics. Find out where the damage lies and, if possible, stop paying a set amount to your marketing strategist every month. Try formulating a fool-proof marketing strategy to bounce back.

You’re chasing ultimate omnipresence

There’s a growing feeling that presence on literally all marketing platforms is the key to success. What many don’t understand is that the same practice could also end up being counter-productive. It is possible consumers might get annoyed by the product or business being perpetually flashed in their faces.

There’s less heed paid to other growth drivers

One other clear indicator of marketing addiction could be the lack of importance given to the business’s other growth drivers. If all the eggs are put into the one basket of marketing, it could prove detrimental. Other aspects like customer care and relationship, long-term growth, financial stability, product development and others get inadequate attention in the process.

In the current age of cutting-edge technology and the fast-paced nature of physical and digital marketplaces, marketing can be a boon or a bane. Guarding yourself against getting addicted to it and maintaining a healthy balance should be quintessential for any entrepreneur.