In some ways, the world of business in the 2020s is a lot like the (often nightmarishly frustrating) world of online dating. You put a lot of time and effort in to making your brand look attractive to people in your target audience. You market yourself in line with (what you believe to be) their needs and preferences. You do all that you can to position yourself as the solution to their problems, their pain points, their frustrations. And it can be a crushing blow to your self esteem when the people who could and should be your customers choose to “swipe left” on your brand, but “swipe right” on your competitors’.

But wounded pride won’t keep the lights on. You need to identify what your competitors are doing to engage your target audience that you’re not and adjust your strategy accordingly. Don’t be downhearted. Stay true to the values and ideals that your brand was built upon, keep delivering operational excellence and ensure that every member of your team shares your vision. When you have this sort of infrastructure in place, it’s simply a matter of making sure that you’re not making any of these marketing or operational missteps.

You’re either not doing content marketing, or doing it wrong

Content marketing can be a tremendous boon to your business’ relationship with established customers and new prospects alike. Your content can provide a showcase for your own inimitable combination of knowledge, experience, insights and skills. It can help customers to perceive the value in your brand, and establish trust. Furthermore, when you’re posting content regularly and encouraging visitors to move around your website reading different articles, it can also give your SEO a nudge in the right direction.

If you’re not creating original content such as blogs, vlogs, infographics, white papers, e-books etc. regularly, you could be missing out. But doing content marketing wrong can be even worse. Every piece of content you create needs to be made with the audience’s needs, pain points and desires in mind. It needs to be directly useful to them. Otherwise your content may come across as self-congratulatory.

Your processes are inefficient, and it’s damaging your customer care

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that marketing is the only way to make an impression with customers. Your operational efficiency can also speak volumes. Stressed and overworked team members. Long waits for the phone to be answered. Over reliance on chatbots and automated phone services… it can all combine to send the wrong message to prospective customers.

A Software Development Company may be able to help you to make your operations more efficient, and your customer interactions more frictionless. And that can only improve your first impression.

You’ve adopted the wrong approach to marketing on social media

Finally, it’s not enough to have a presence on social media. It’s important to make sure you have the right presence on social media. The kind that responds to queries and even complaints in a timely manner. The kind that knows which platforms mean the most to your target audience. And the kind that actually interacts with followers rather than posting and moving on. 

In most cases, all it takes is a few strategic changes to operations to get customers “swiping right” on your brand again and again!