Premature Optimization: 5 Big Mistakes Marketers Make

In software development, there’s a popular problem that developers refer to as “premature optimization.” The basic gist is this: working to perfect certain parts of the product before addressing the biggest problem. In manufacturing terms, it’s improving on some point that isn’t the bottleneck. Trying to improve on things other than the main problem that's holding you back won't help you achieve your goals.

I’ve seen a lot of companies that suffer from the same problem when it comes to their inbound marketing. They have a tendency to focus on something that’s cool and exciting, or maybe technically impressive. But when that isn’t the biggest problem keeping them from their goals, it's misplaced effort. Here are some of the more common mistakes I’ve seen:

Trying to generate more content before you have content-reader fit

Who’s your ideal customer? What do they do? What problems of theirs can you solve? Where do they spend time online? 

These are the questions you need to have answers to before you start trying to ramp up content production. Putting too much work into content generation before you know your audience is usually a wasted effort. You’re shooting in the dark. 

Instead, start by interviewing prospects and trying to understand what problems they face. Use that information to guide you. Make sure your content is written to the people you’re trying to interact with, and that it provides value.

Then, once you’ve produced some content, ask your readers for feedback. This is super important. Getting feedback from the people you’re trying to reach will help you determine if what you’re creating is useful or not. 

Focusing on conversions before traffic

Before you know what appeals to your customers, spending too much effort on conversions can also be a wasted effort. You always want to have ways for people to convert, even if it’s only a subscription form or a "contact us" page. But if you don't even have a decent amount of interest in your blog content, focusing too much on conversion is a wasted effort. There are endless variables involved; you could improve a landing page layout, CTA wording, or form fields. But until you’re getting enough traffic to know that your content is useful, it doesn't make sense to spend time on those things. 

Priority number one is to have something people want. Once your blog can provide that, people will trust you enough to give you their information in exchange for a download. Have you ever gone to a site, read something mediocre, and then thought that you’d like to download something more from them? If you said “Yep, I’ve done that,” then you’re crazy! That’s like ordering a second helping of a dish you didn’t like the first time. 

Instead of trying to improve conversion metrics, focus on making your blog work for you and for your readers. Figure out if it’s resonating with the people you’re trying to attract. Only then should you spend time and effort trying to make people convert. 

Working on SEO optimization before knowing if it's beneficial to your company

Some companies want "good SEO," but what does that mean? Is it even useful for every business? Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a great way to pull people into your marketing funnel. For it to work, though, it's important to know who your customers are and what they look for online. Without that knowledge, SEO won't work for your business.

In a perfect world, a little keyword research would tell you what your prospects search for. Then all you'd have to do is create great content that answers their questions, and they'd find it organically. Unfortunately, since Google changes its algorithms so often, this process isn't so streamlined.

Consider whether your target audience is searching for the topics you’re writing on. If you’re addressing a known problem, then it’s likely that they are looking for solutions. But if you're offering something new, then potential customers may not know to look for what you offer. In that case, you'd be better served creating awareness for your product and the problems it solves before focusing on specific keywords.

Lead nurturing before you have enough leads

Lead nurturing, or marketing automation, can be a wonderful thing when done well. In an ideal scenario, you’d provide helpful content to your prospects at just the right time. They'd use this to educate themselves, and when they're ready, they'd talk to sales. 

The problem is, not everyone has enough leads to justify this. If you have a full-time sales organization, then you might need to be generating more than 50 leads a week before there are many to call on. This number could vary based on how many salespeople you have, and how busy they currently are. Lead nurturing comes into play once you need to start prioritizing leads. Until you have too many leads to follow up with, lead nurturing isn’t necessary.

Lead nurturing before you have a clear hand-off point with sales

There’s another way setting up lead nurturing can be premature: not knowing when the hand-off to sales should be. This is more art than science, but you should start off with a general idea of when this hand-off should occur. You'll need to test to see if your timing works or not, and adjust as needed. 

Without a hand-off point, you’re just sending out automated emails without nurturing anyone. Try to work with sales to learn what questions people ask most often, then develop content that addresses them. Your salespeople will love you, and you’ll actually be nurturing your leads, not just sending them emails. It’s a subtle difference, but it can vastly improve the lead quality you hand off to your sales team. 

A final note:

Marketing is hard work. If it were easy, everyone would do it. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that there’s some quick way to instantly get a lot of success. The stories you hear about that are either outliers, or the results of slogging it out on lots of things that didn’t work.

Instead, focus on getting the fundamentals right. Have a deep understanding of the problems of the people you’re trying to attract. This can save you a lot of time down the road and prevent you from having the “why isn’t this working for us?” conversation that everyone dreads. Know the people you’re writing to and provide useful content - the rest will tend to work itself out.