10 Avoidable Marketing Mistakes

What’s on the iPod: Late March, Death March by Frightened Rabbit

Piper welcoming us to the Tattoo

What a weekend. It’s Tartan Week in New York City, and the festivities began Friday. We took part of the day off Friday and headed up for Saturday’s kirkin o’ the tartan and the parade, which we participate in every year. It was, per usual, a great time. We met up with people we see once a year — annual friends, as it were.

Needless to say, a weekend in Manhattan equals a ton of walking. Saturday alone, we logged just under five miles on foot. Friday wasn’t so bad, as we’d found a fantastic tapas restaurant within a block of our hotel. Sunday, we took the subway to meet his brother at the Harvard Club for breakfast, then walked ten blocks to Penn Station for the ride home.

A train ride is a perfect opportunity to tie up some work details, so I spent the ride up coordinating interviews and responding to important emails. On the way back, I caught up on blog reading and generally browsed the Internet. For every one good piece of advice (not advice labeled “MUST DO”), there are scores of lousy pieces of advice. What concerns me isn’t that this stuff is floating out there, but that writers may be listening.

Here, in no particular order, are some of the largest mistakes you can make if you’re a freelance writer trying to market your business:

Market to your entire customer list every day. Maybe you remember my encounter with a good friend who did just that. If you’re in doubt about the message you’re sending and whether it’s too often, ask yourself how many emails of the same nature you read in a week. Right. I like to reach out every week or so to some of my potential clients — for me, that’s just enough time to let them know I’m there and to remind them of my background.

Hound the hell out of people via social media. We’ve all read the advice “Scan LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook for clients.” That’s different than sending out mass mailings to everyone on LinkedIn, trying to sell to people the minute they view your profile, or setting up 20 Twitter blasts a day promoting your latest book or advertising your brilliance. Know those Twitter people or LinkedIn group people who put up promotion after promotion? Know how annoying that is to you? Don’t be like that.

Adopt hashtag overload. While I don’t believe there should be any hard-and-fast rules on how many hashtags a person uses, use your head. If four looks like too many, find a way to send the message out to those various groups in different ways. I use no more than three before I think it looks too unreadable. Pay attention to your message and your audience.

Argue both sides of the issue for the Google juice. Ho hum. How boring (and obvious) can you be if today you say content mills are the devil’s spawn and tomorrow you advocate everyone try it at least once? Really boring. Inciting debates by purposefully flipflopping on an issue may get you instant traffic and blog followers, but what are the side effects of that? Lack of trust from your audience, clients who aren’t sure you’re able to be honest with them, followers unsubscribing, and your reputation taking a hefty hit — just for starters. No website ranking is worth people thinking your not genuine. If I can’t trust what you’re saying, I’m going to stop listening.

Write a really long sales pitch complete with bold fonts and abundant exclamation points. Does this ever work? Yes, but writers and people marketing to writers have adopted what could be the worst possible approach for their audience. Maybe it’s just me, but I was taught in J school to let the words do the work, not the punctuation. If you know how to write and your idea has merit, you don’t need to resort to trickery. Also, be succinct. Tell us what you’re selling, how much, and how it’s going to benefit us.

Avoid controversial conversations. Be it on your blog or with your potential clients, don’t ignore the pushback. In some cases, clients will get insulting — that’s okay to ignore (completely– and lose their contact info). What isn’t okay is to do what one former blogger did and delete comments that didn’t support the blogger’s own particular stance. Whether taking on a client’s objections or conflicting beliefs or those of a blog community, be true to yourself and allow others to be true to themselves. You may never agree, but you won’t lose respect by allowing others to have their say.

Insert your politics. I’ve seen an increase in politically charged notes in my in box over the last decade. In one case, I disagreed completely with what the colleague was saying and how he was presenting his political views to his customers. It had nothing to do with his business, so why did he think insulting half his client base was a good move? In another case, I agreed completely. Still, I was no less offended, because to me, Starbucks should be selling me a beverage, not stumping for a political party to its customers. They nearly lost my business on that one.

Lie. Is that webinar or e-course really about to sell out? Am I an award-winning journalist or did I merely win a contest? Have you really written tons of advertising content, or are you counting every line in that one press release as a slogan, caption, company profile, and announcement? Those who know me know I don’t like absolute statements, but this one is one to live by: Never overstate your background. Instead, be truthful, but point out the similarities (if there are any) between the job required and ones you’ve completed in the past.

Tell your potential clients how great you are. It only matters a little who you are and what you can do. What’s primary is how that benefits your clients. Do they care that you have six degrees from four colleges? Only if you show them how that background can make them money. Remove the “I” from your sales pitch and replace it with “you.”

Apologize. Whether it’s for not having the exact background they require or simply for bothering them with your note, your apology translates as lack of skill. Any writer worth his or her fee would approach a client with confidence, show them how their skills can translate into the best money that company has ever spent, and convince that client that they’re capable of forging a successful partnership.

Writers, what mistakes do you see in marketing?
What methods work for you/appeal to you?
What doesn’t?