5 Marketing Tactics That Don't Matter

We are in the midst of a epidemic that is claiming the precious time of way too many marketers. New, shiny, and seemingly fun marketing tactics that don't drive business value are killing the productivity of marketers around the world. It's time that, as marketers, we stop spending time on tactics simply because they seem cool. 

Of course, different tactics work for different businesses. However, there are some marketing tactics that simply aren't worth the time, hassle, or cost. Here are several examples.

5 Marketing Tactics That Don't Matter

1. Redesigning Your Website 'Just Because' - Websites are the hub for driving online leads. Too many marketers redesign their websites just because they want a different look. How cool your website looks really doesn't matter. What does matter is how many leads your website generates. Thus, website redesigns without clear lead generation improvement goals are pointless.

2. Obsessing Over Meta Descriptions - Back in the early days of search, making sure you had great, well-written meta data and meta descriptions was key to ranking well in search engines. This simply isn't the case anymore. What's much more important is focusing on building inbound links and generating social media shares to build authority with search engines. Going through every page on your website and writing the perfect meta description just isn't worth it.

3. Constantly Creating New Blogs - Business blogging is one of the most important aspects of inbound marketing that a business can do. Too many marketers, however, water down the impact of their blogging efforts by creating tons of new blogs for campaigns and other marketing functions. Instead, it is better to build one awesome and successful blog that is the hub for all your short-form business content.

4. Measuring Sentiment - People lie. People lie online even more. Trying to measure the change in sentiment of social media messages is a total waste. Not only is it inaccurate, but what actionable marketing activities can you take from that reporting? Make people happier? Really? Instead, place this time and effort into tangible efforts that will generate or retain customers.

5. Mass Public Relations Emails -Too many public relations professionals are becoming some of the worst spammers on the web. Mass emailing a news release to hundreds of people who never opted in to receive news from your business is a terrible practice, and it doesn't work. You'll alienate your target audience, and you won't get any of the positive media attention you're looking for. Instead, focus your time on building relationships and creating more targeted communications with relevant media professionals that might actually care about your news.

Too many amazing opportunities exist for moving the needle with marketing to waste valuable time. Let's stop doing what doesn't work.

Photo Credit: cosmic_spanner