Ahh fall is in the air at last! The leaves are turning various shades from golden to bourbon, the pumpkin-spice brigade is out in full force, and cozy nights in are ever more inviting. – That’s all very cute, but here at Creative Energy we’re celebrating the fact that Spooky Season is finally upon us!

Every year, Creative Energy is notorious for organizing a spooktacular Halloween Bash, where we don our costumes and partake in fun and games in ghoulish merriment.
So, in honor of All Hollows’ Eve and everything spooky, here are seven scream-worthy marketing mistakes to steer clear of.

• No Cohesive Plan
  Ok, so you’ve got your brand name and logo locked down, you’ve built your website and you’ve created business accounts for a selection of social media platforms which you post on every now and then. It’s shocking how many companies have the mindset of “we’ve built it, so now they’ll come” and think this is the extent of marketing. These are all corner pieces of the marketing strategy puzzle, but without a unified direction and defined goals, these individual pieces won’t increase brand awareness or reach your target audience on their own. So don’t be a headless horseman, lay down a solid plan and get the most out of your marketing tools.
  
  
• Disbanded Content
  Following on from point one, if you don’t have a cohesive marketing plan, then your content is probably running wild too. ‘Content’ is a little word to encapsulate a lot of… well… content, such as images, graphic design concepts, blogs, e-newsletters, social media posts, podcasts – you name it. And all this content needs to be singing the same tune and marching to the same beat. That’s why we talk about the 3 R’s of content marketing: relevant, reliable, and recognizable.
  
  Whether you’re celebrating the launch of a new product or just riding the wave of the latest trends, the same overarching theme should shine through every form of content. Don’t let your content unravel and fall apart like a mummy.

• Outdated Websites
  Picture this: you click on a website link, and then you wait for what feels like an eternity for the site to load – it’s agonizing. Then the sense of dread escalates when, once the stone-age site eventually loads, it turns out to be clunky with stale images and typefaces, and is all but user-friendly.
  
  You all know the frightful websites I’m talking about. If you’re like me, 9 times out of 10 when faced with such a site, you’ll click off and search for another similar business with a superior website.
  
  And what’s worse than having an outdated website? No website at all.
  
  To this day, many businesses still solely rely on their Facebook page and feel no need for an actual website. – Oh, the horror!

• Inconsistent Branding
  Repeat after me: “Obey the brand guidelines”. You know, those unassuming little rules that keep your brand consistent?
  
  The logo guide, typography, colors, and voice that were agreed upon during the development of a brand aren’t just ‘nice to haves’, all together these elements are what make your brand iconic and instantly recognizable. Yet more often than we’d like we come across clients who think these guidelines don’t apply to them. They’ll go totally off-brand and not even realize it, then create some sort of Frankenstein.

• Discontinued Blogs
  Another big no-no that is off-putting to your website viewers is having an archive of ancient blogs. When viewers visit your blog page only to find that your last article was posted 10 months ago, they will think something is off. – Is your company having difficulty? Are operations still running smoothly? Or are you just too lazy to keep up to date with your blogging?
  
  Truth is, we’re not perfect either. There have been times when we’ve neglected our Creative Energy blog page too, but we came up with a solution: we rotate the responsibility among our 30+ employees, so everyone gets a turn at writing a few blogs a year. Not only does this spread the burden of blogging equally, but it also gives all of our staff a chance to write about topics they’re passionate about.
  
  So, find a solution that works for your team to avoid creating a desolate wasteland of bygone blogs.

• Tangled Email Threads
  All companies can be guilty of this, whether it’s on the client or agency side. Particularly when it comes to big projects with a myriad of moving parts, email threads often turn into convoluted messes. – This slows down the exchange of information as you’re busy trying to play catch-up in the email chain and makes it easy to miss important details. Here are some good rules of thumb to follow: when communicating over email, be sure to outline the topic in the subject line; then keep the body of your email as clear and concise as possible. This way your keywords can be found easily when searching for emails and threads are quickly retrievable.
  
  Don’t let your email chains turn into complicated spiderwebs.

• Ghosting
  Another two-way road is ghosting. As an agency, we need to be as responsive as possible to our clients. We can’t have our account managers going MIA or taking ages to respond to emails. The same goes for clients, sometimes projects get stalled and we have to push back deadlines because we don’t receive feedback or approval of work in a timely manner. In this day and age, life is very fast-paced, everybody’s busy and there are never enough hours in the day. But out of mutual respect, and to meet project deadlines, both agencies and clients need to maintain consistent communication.
  
  Don’t be an evasive ghost, be a friendly and helpful ghost. 

And there you have it, seven terrifying marketing mistakes to avoid. We hope you’ve enjoyed these spooky tales and have a monstrously wonderful Halloween.

Creative Energy is a full-service marketing and advertising agency, so if you need help wrangling your content, defining a clear-cut marketing plan, giving your website a facelift, or writing some blogs (we have excellent copywriters), just give us a call! We’re always happy to chat.