Do your marketing efforts tend to trick or treat your customers? Are you being haunted by wasted marketing dollars? Here are a few ways you could be scaring potential customers away and tips on how to change your tune.

Using too much “sales speak”

There’s a reason we hate sales calls. The fastest way to get turned down is to start the conversation off in full-on selling mode. Ditch words and phrases like “cutting-edge,” “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” or “on sale now” in the beginning conversations and replace them with an authentic, human approach. Think about your customers’ demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more personal you are, the better. If you spend time and focus on perfecting your message and its delivery, you will get a much better response from people.

Caring only about yourself

Marketing is a lot like dating. Nobody wants to sit there and hear you drag on and on about yourself and how great you are. Brands should focus their efforts on building a relationship with the consumer. This is called the customer experience. Don’t tell your customer what your product does, tell them what they can do with it. Give advice on a topic your audience cares about. Delight them with content they would find interesting. Provide helpful insight to a problem they are having. Show them you care about winning their business.

Neglecting mobile formatting

Poorly designed mobile pages can haunt you. It only takes a matter of seconds for a user to decide if a webpage is worth their time or not. Take a look at your site analytics to see just how many people are visiting your site on a mobile device. Chances are – that number is significant. Now take a look at how seamless your mobile webpages appear. Are they fluid and easy to navigate? If not, you can count on a majority of people to bounce out of there.

Being too pushy

Being too pushy can not only deter potential customers, but it can also hurt your company's reputation. Don’t send repetitive emails that don’t offer anything of value. Limit social media to sharing to meaningful and relevant content. Rather than using one-way disruptive marketing techniques, there are ways to entice customers to come to you. You can use Inbound Marketing as a method of attracting, engaging, and delighting people to grow a business that provides value and builds trust.

“Think of yourself as a subject-matter expert. You have a bird’s eye view of your prospect’s industry, while they’re on the ground. Use your hard-earned knowledge to make recommendations and provide new insights,” explains Hubspot in 8 Ways to Avoid Sounding Like a Pushy Salesperson

Need help spicing up your marketing strategy this Halloween season? Just ask On-Target!.