When promoting your business, your message needs to be clear. If it isn’t clear, you could end up confusing your customers. A confusing message could put off customers from using your business. Alternatively, it could lead to customers making mistakes, which may result in complaints.
Of course, no business sets out to confuse their customers – it’s usually the result of marketing mistakes. Below are just some of the marketing mistakes that can lead to confused customers.
Branding inconsistencies
When building a brand, it’s important that you use the same branding ingredients in all of your marketing. This includes using the same brand name, colour scheme, logo or slogan across all marketing channels. If your website has a different brand name, logo and color scheme to your social media pages, customers are likely to doubt whether it’s the same company
If you rebrand your business, make sure that everything is changed to match your new brand. This could include redesigning your website, updating social media pages, getting rid of old business cards, updating shop signs or changing your uniform.
Outdated information
It’s also important that you update any information that is no longer relevant. Displaying an old phone number and email address on your website or printing an old address on a flyer could lead to customers being unable to get hold of you. You also need to be careful of promoting products you no longer sell or promotions that are no longer valid.
Whenever your business goes through a major change, make sure to check your marketing channels (such as your website, social media pages and any printed media) and remove any outdated information.
Overly technical lingo
Using technical terms can help you to look more professional – but if you use too much technical lingo, it’s possible customers won’t know what you’re talking about.
Know your audience and consider their experience level. Don’t be afraid to link to pages on your site explaining certain terms. With some industries like law, it can be quite difficult to get the tone right – in this case you may want to look into a company that specialises in digital marketing for law firms. This can help you to get the right balance between technical language and layman’s terms.
Information overload
You can confuse your customer by giving them too much information. This could include trying to promote too many products at once or simply providing overly detailed information to someone that isn’t interested.
Marketing is now becoming more segmented and personalised. This involves marketing to specific groups and even individuals with certain information. This could include creating landing pages on your site that display specific information relevant to a certain keyword or ad. It could also include targeting specific emails at specific customers.
Deceiving promotions
Another way in which many companies confuse customers is by using deceiving promotions. This could include advertising a product at a certain price, when actually it’s much higher once you factor in necessary extras like shipping and tax. It’s also possible to deceive customers by hiding important information in the small print (such as a promotion only being valid on certain days).
Try to be clear about the price of your product or service upfront. Don’t wait until a customer has gone through your entire checkout process to then throw in added fees – make these extra fees clear from the beginning. Similarly, make sure that the most important terms and conditions are clearly displayed.
