by maneera saxena behl a marketing campaign for a new product or service or maybe a campaign just for your company can be extremely exciting however if you dont know what you are doing it can lead to costly pitfalls here is a list of the most common marketing mistakes that companies make and tricks of the trade on how to avoid the same a properly developed marketing plan requires a lot of thought and research even then there are no guarantees that you will always get it right a marketing plan that that does not help you sell the product or service could mean a lot of wasted money for your company if you do not start correctly then you will need even more money and effort to get it corrected in your second round of effort 1 one size or idea does not fit the bill for everyone as the world gets more and more complicated and congested with more products you need to create a customized marketing plan for your product or service to stand over the clutter therefore you must adapt your marketing message for every individual market to ensure maximized impact take for example a brand like mcdonalds while they are a truly worldwide brand they adopt a marketing strategy that has been christened as glocal so that they customize their brand message marketing campaigns and even menus to cater to local markets while your product or service might have a universal appeal make sure that your marketing approach always caters to every local market you want to target 2 clarify your brand positioning define your product usp a products usp is its unique selling proposition what makes your offering to your customers different you may be selling a steel mug in a market full of steel mug sellers why should the customer go for your product what is unique about your offering unless you define and then highlight your usp in your product design product packaging product advertising you arent telling your target customers why you are far better than your competitor your usp must be evident in every piece of marketing vehicle you use through your punchline or tagline every consumer wants to think that they are getting more value for their money which is why highlighting your usp throughout your marketing campaign can substantially drive up sales figures 3 ignoring old customers and running after new customers most companies feel if they reach out to new customers every week they have a successful strategy however this could backfire as research has it that 80 per cent of business comes from repeat customers and just 20 per cent from new customers well if they think that if they reach out to thousands more and convert them into paying customers their marketing campaigns are actually proving to be successful if you do not continue to attract your current customer base back to your business you are losing out on a lot of profits