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Established 2009

Have Your Efforts to Help Clients with their Advertising Ever Failed and If So, Why?

mistakes

Just like everyone else, we here at MindEcology wish we could say that we’ve been successful in every endeavor. The fact of the matter is our business – also just like every other – has had its share of advertising challenges.

What we’ve set out to do is learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them. Here are a few of the times our efforts to help our clients have been less than successful.

  1. We didn’t get 100% lockdown on some of their goals at the outset (but we’ve learned from that)

When we first started MindEcology, we were raring to go and just knew we could help everyone with everything. One of our early clients was eager to change the world with their great new service. We found out the hard way that what they saw as success and what we saw as success wasn’t the same the same thing.

These days, we make a point of identifying goals in our initial meetings with new clients – and check in regularly to make sure that we are all working in the same direction and measuring success by the same metrics.

  1. Their product lacked demand

Let’s face it, everyone with a product – whether they are an inventor or an entrepreneur – wants to believe that whatever they are selling is the next best thing to sliced bread. And maybe it is. But it’s usually not.

Initially, it was easy to get swept up in a client’s enthusiasm for the potential demand for whatever they were selling. Afterall, we got into marketing because we want to help businesses succeed and see their owners’ dreams come true. But we learned that simply accepting a client’s enthusiasm for the potential demand for their product can lead to failure.

That’s why now we back up our marketing efforts with market research – and more importantly, we share that research with our clients. That way if the demand isn’t there, our clients know it in advance. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we send a client back to the drawing board. Oftentimes, with the right marketing budget, we can focus our efforts on creating demand.

  1. We failed to get buy-in that they needed a better landing page.

Sometimes, even if initial advertising fails, it’s possible to rectify the situation by tweaking a few key elements.

MindEcology worked with a client several years ago that refused to invest in a new landing page. We knew that since they were rolling out a new product, a new landing page on their existing website would be key to their marketing efforts, but the client dug their heels in and refused to make the investment.

Because of that, what should have been a slam dunk suffered from slow initial sales. Luckily, we were able to go back to the client and convince them to give the marketing message a dynamic landing page and the new product was able to garner the sales the client anticipated.

  1. Their pricing was off

Whether you are selling lip balm or luxury automobiles, pricing is key. Along with its more difficult-to-discern cousin, perceived value, pricing will make or break the success of a product or service. It doesn’t matter how valuable something is, if the pricing does not align with what the public thinks it should be worth, sales are going to suffer and advertising is going to fail.

This is another instance where market research can identify both pitfalls and opportunities and it’s a valuable lesson. Intensive market research can help guide pricing and identify any misalignment between what clients think a product or service is worth and what the public is actually willing to pay for it.

If you are ready to work with an agency that can be honest – with themselves and their clients – click here to schedule a consultation with MindEcology.