The last three online marketing mistakes your company may be guilty of are all customer focused. That should clue you in to the biggest marketing mistake, one plenty of companies large and small make every day. Without your customers, you don’t even exist; forgetting about them is tantamount to forgetting your company’s address. So check out tips 3, 4 and 5 and learn how your online advertising can become a successful ad venture. For tips 1 and 2, check out Part 1

3. …Not Providing Extra Service for Your Customers

One of the things that customers look for in a business are the freebies included before/during/after receiving a certain product or service. The pitfall for some companies is that they don’t care about their customers after the purchase is done. It’s like business owners have this “We provided what you want, you got it, and we got our money. We’re even” mentality. This mindset might just lose you a possible brand advocate.

Bro Tip: Learn what your market might want as an extra from your business. Selling gardening tools? Offer a free e-book on how to better take care of a garden. Are you offering a marketing service? Offer a free 1 hour consultation if they decide to take your service. Take this for example: a well-known company that offers business cards printing services, UPrinting.com, provides free templates for customers that want to avail themselves of their printing service. They also have a free design tool on their website that they established to help would-be customers in designing their very own cards on the site itself. If a customer wants to change something, they could just upload their design on the website, tweak it then place an order and they are good to go.

4. …Not Giving Adequate Information to Customers

No matter how well established a company is or how long it has been on the market, there will be potential customers or clients who will have questions regarding what it is they do. This is especially true for those service-related businesses. Giving a late response, a vague answer or not responding at all thinking that “Eh, I know what I’m doing, they can just sit back, take it slow and let the good times roll” is NOT a good thing. Failing to provide a response or genuine customer service is a sure-fire way to lose your clients without your contracts ever reaching your first month. They chose you to get into a partnership with them. They are paying you. You should at least answer their questions.

Bro Tip: Cater to their questions as quickly, precisely and friendly as you can. You must always put talking with your clients first before anything else. Getting them in the know with whatever you are doing not only puts them in a secure spot that you are doing something worth their money, but you are also making them feel comfortable working with you longer. Being nice to your clients regarding their questions is a good way to rack up other clients as well; you never know if those happy clients will bring in future customers via referrals.

5. …Not Meeting Up to the Expectations of Your Customers

This is one of the deadliest things that your company can do. Failure to comply with whatever product/service you are offering will eventually lead to the downfall of your company. Word travels fast in the business industry. You may try to run from it but facts will eventually catch up to you. Some companies take their clients for granted, providing little work in exchange for their customers’ money.

Bro Tip: Align goals perfectly with your customer if you are in a service-based industry. Know what your client expects and carefully relay to them what you can do, and do it with maximum efficiency. In product-based businesses, provide disclaimers for what your products cannot do (like that famous line in commercials “batteries not included”). Don’t keep your customers in the dark about your product sizes too; provide images or videos of your products with specifications so your buyers know what they would be getting.

If you want to be known, to have more customers or to rise from a small business to a multilevel enterprise, then start with the not-so-small things that matter a lot. If you have more to share, please feel free to comment.