Sex Sells Yep. But loads of other things sell, too!

Marketing is often misunderstood, particularly in the era of “internet marketing”, with more social media platforms than you can shake a stick at. Not only that, but some of the more erroneous claims that marketers make about how quickly businesses can see results or what kind of results they can generate can quickly result in an awful lot of money being spent for very little ROI. Here, we debunk 10 of the most common marketing myths.

1. You Need to Market Instead of Doing Nothing at All
There’s a bit of an odd idea that if you’re not actively marketing, you’re failing. Well, that’s slightly incorrect. If you don’t know what you’re doing, and you’re throwing money at marketing, then you’re failing. Come up with a strategic plan and consult experts if you feel it is necessary, but don’t throw money at something you’re unsure of.

2. Sex Sells
Yep. But loads of other things sell, too. You don’t have to try to shoehorn sex or sexy things or sexy times into your blog about food, for example, to try to sell your potato peeler. It won’t work. Creativity and being funny and interesting and relatable are what make people want to read your blogs and connect with your website and buy your products and return to your brand over and over again. Sex, or no sex.

3. All I Need is Traffic
According to conversion optimization genius Bryan Eisenberg, businesses spend on average a whopping $92 on traffic compared to just $1 on customer experience. So all that means is that a potential customer has landed on the site, but because their customer experience is likely so poor, they don’t stick around. The focus shouldn’t just be on traffic – it should be on converting customers once they land, having a site that has scalable, persuasive and interesting content, that also works on with SEO. (It’s not as difficult as you’d think!)

4. Anyone Can Do Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing has a bit of a bad rep – with an ongoing joke that the person who runs a business’ social media account is often “just” an intern. Done properly, by someone trained, who knows how to engage with followers, social media marketing can be a fantastic addition to your arsenal. Just make sure you choose the right platforms. For example, Facebook and Twitter are an excellent place to start. Add Instagram if you’re a visual brand, and Vine and Snapchat if you’re a youthful start-up or a fashion and music brand.

5. We Are Just So Good, People Will Buy Our Stuff
This “If we build it, the people will come” mentality can be incredibly damaging to a brand, simply because it puts all of the onus on the customer if the brand doesn’t perform particularly well when really, the onus needs to be on the brand. If people aren’t buying, it’s because of something you’re doing.

6. Email Marketing is Pointless
Long form email marketing campaigns in some niches, like (I’ll say it again: internet marketing) can be a little bit clichéd because they are repeating the same thing over and over and over again. But emails that gently prompt the reader to go ahead and checkout because they have a basket full of items at your website, or that remind them of that article they were checking out last week. Light nudges can work as part of your longer campaign.

7. I Must Be No.1 On Google
Er, why? What for? What will that achieve? Being in the top spot on Google doesn’t mean you’ll be there forever, so if an SEO company promises that they can get you there and keep you there, here’s the thing – they’re lying their socks off. Also, just because you’re in the top spot doesn’t mean you’ll get clicks if your meta title and meta tags are poorly written. Once people land on your site, if it’s poorly designed, poorly written and just generally pretty rubbish, they’ll click off faster than you can say, “We’re number one!”

First up, concentrate onto making your site into a quality place for readers and customers, then rank for less competitive keywords. Content is always king. Once you’re ranking for less competitive keywords, move your way up the chain.

8. I Should Spend X Money on Marketing
A lot of “experts” have a designated set of rules that they expect people to abide by – such as, you should spend X amount of your budget on marketing, X amount on social media, X amount on keyword research and so on and so on. Scrap the rulebook. Spend what needs to be spent and don’t worry about whether or not you’ve gone over your 10% or not and you’ll do just fine.

Find what works for you and stick with it – whether you sell stationery or sweeties, just remember that once you get into the groove, it’s important to always keep tweaking and testing to make sure that your campaign is as profitable as it can be. Never rest on your laurels (or backside) or you might just find that what used to work really well is actually the worst possible thing you could be doing.