Brand managers: Avoid these crucial marketing mistakes

When you’re running a startup, you have difficult choices to make about marketing.

On one hand, marketing is the lifeblood of an organization. Good marketing attracts customers and investors alike.

On the other hand, you can’t spend too much time, effort and resources on marketing. It can distract from other major concerns such as product development, sales and support.

Avoid these pitfalls in your quest for effective marketing:

1. Overspending

Overspending on marketing is a classic mistake. Online marketing lets you see results coming in immediately, and you might be tempted to respond by increasing your budget for AdWords, banner ads and whatever other campaigns you run.

This is dangerous for a few reasons.

First, you are putting too many eggs in one basket. By pouring more money into marketing, you leave less for your actual product and everything that surrounds it. All the marketing in the world can’t make up for a bad product or missing features. You want it all to succeed and grow. That means you have to be smart about determining when your rate of return is leveling off and realize it’s time to concentrate on other things.