Categories
Every business person desires growth. But growth comes at a cost – and that involves having a clear vision of how to get to your desired destination. Businesses without a clear vision end up with marketing myopia.
Marketing myopia is a situation where the business vision tends to be limited. And the business will not see beyond its product or service offering. A close look at the business environment will reveal several marketing myopia examples.
Typically, businesses experiencing marketing myopia tend to focus on their current offering while neglecting future needs. In the long run, the strategy will likely stunt the business growth and would probably lead to bankruptcy.
The company tends to focus on a single aspect of its business while neglecting other areas. And this situation is one of the leading causes of failure among businesses.
If you’ve been paying attention, you must have seen popular brands in the 1990s that are not in existence today. Furthermore, there are some leading companies today that will cease to exist in the next 20 years.
All these are marketing myopia examples – when companies neglect the needs of their customers. And by neglecting the needs of their customers, they’d likely not evolve with the changing times.
Regardless of your years of business experience, you need to focus on your customers even while you churn out premium products or services.
But what is marketing myopia, its causes, and how to avoid it? Well, you’d discover all these and more in this guide. You’d also get to see some marketing myopia examples. Let’s get started by explaining what marketing myopia is.
Marketing myopia involves focusing on the business interest while neglecting the interest of the stakeholders and customers. The primary issue lies in the belief that the company knows what it needs best. And that will lead to neglecting the opinions or inputs of others.
Nowadays, many businesses face the issue of marketing myopia, and the issue has been around since 1960 when it was cited in the Harvard Business Review.
With the evolution of technology and the globalization of the business environment, companies have lots of work to do. Aside from focusing on improving the quality of their product offering, companies have to come up with innovative ways of connecting with their target audience.
Failure to connect with the audience may lead to angry customers, loss of customers, and ultimately a decline in the business profit. Successful businesses come up with ways of eliminating any trace of marketing myopia. To do that, they have to stay on top of their customer’s needs and provide valuable feedback that helps in the decision-making process.
Since happy customers translate to successful businesses, keeping your customers happy isn’t a bad idea.
Here are some common causes of marketing myopia.
When a company becomes a reputable and established brand, it’d likely become complacent and neglect the needs of its customers. After all, they’re the leading company in the industry and may lack strong rivals who may be competing for the top spot.
The assumption of being the most dominant player in the industry will make them believe that anything they produce will sell. This will, in turn, make them focus on their product or service offering while neglecting the relationship with their customers.
Becoming a top company in the industry is good. But it comes with its downside – and one of which is the belief that you’d remain in the top position forever.
When such self-deceiving thoughts start creeping into the mind, it’s just a matter of time before the company becomes lazy and probably stops investing in areas that would boost the customer relationship. A more prepared competitor may show up and take all the market shares.
Most marketing myopia examples are as a result of success. Success comes with its share of overconfidence – and that’s when the company stops seeking its customer’s feedback. With time, the gap between the company’s product and the customer’s requirements becomes wide. And when a rival shows up in the market, the customers will likely abandon the marketing myopic brand.
A clear marketing myopic example happens when a brand focuses more on its products and not on its customer’s needs. They become more obsessed with what they’re offering and not with the market demands. Most times, customers opt for their products or services because of a lack of better alternatives in the market.
The evolution of technology introduces new products in the marketplace. At the same time, it changes the lifestyle of the customer.
When these issues are not put into consideration, brands tend to stop developing their products, and that may make the product obsolete in the long run. When a product or service offering stops meeting the demands of the market, customers will likely stop using it.
A close look at some marketing myopia examples reveals some patterns. And there are things you can do to avoid it. Here are some ways to avoid marketing myopia.
Your business should revolve around your customers. Always put them first. You can do that by understanding their wants, needs, expectations, problems, and frustrations. If you receive complaints about your products or services, you’ve got to make the necessary adjustments. Also, follow up to ascertain that the changes meet the customer’s needs and expectations.
Having a well-defined plan for the future is a sure way to avoid marketing myopia. And the various marketing myopia examples proves that. Even if you’re the top-performing company in your industry, you still need a defined plan for the future. Always look out for potential opportunities and issues, and come up with innovative ways of handling them.
Marketing is an unending process. Even after launching a new product or service offering, you need to keep at it. And you can do that by continuing to engage with your customers and also promote your brand across various channels.
Keeping a close eye on your competitors is a sure way to handle marketing myopia. Keeping your friends close, and your enemies closer doesn’t only apply in real life and political situations – it also applies in marketing.
What are your rivals up to, and what new products or services are they launching into the market? Do these products or services appeal to the audience, and do they pose some threats to your brand?
Venturing into new areas of business can be somewhat scary. But if you want to remain relevant in the market, then you’ve got to keep innovating. After all, fortune favors the bold. You need to be bold if you want to avoid marketing myopia.
Try experimenting with various products or service offerings. This way, you get to boost your customer loyalty and possibly come up with better products that will satisfy their needs.
In the early 2000s (2000 – 2006), Nokia phones dominated the market. However, the brand didn’t evolve with the changing technology, and its products became obsolete.
In 2016, it was almost impossible to find any Nokia product in the market. Rivals like iPhones and Samsung dominated the industry, and Nokia, the once-dominant brand, is gone. From this marketing myopia example, you’d see that overconfidence played a huge role in the demise of the Nokia brand.
Kodak failure is a one of the marketing myopia examples. There were times when Kodak products were everywhere in the market. However, due to their inability to change with the times, digital cameras and smartphones kicked Kodak off the market.
Blackberry phones had a whopping 20% world market share and a 50% US market share. However, everything changed with the introduction of Samsung phones. Today, Blackberry doesn’t have any share in the smartphone industry. This marketing myopia example shows that lack of innovation leads to loss of market share.
TV series, Video games, showbiz, and movies fall under the entertainment category. Since they are targeting the same audience, differentiating them won’t be the most viable option. Their primary objective is to collaborate in entertaining the audience.
Marketing Myopia can also apply to digital marketing as companies can become too focused on the latest digital tools and channels, without considering the overall customer experience and their needs. For example, a company may invest heavily in social media and PPC (Pay-per-Click) advertising without fully understanding their target audience’s preferences and behaviors. This can result in a lack of engagement and a poor return on investment.
To avoid becoming a marketing myopia examples in digital marketing, companies must have a customer-centric approach and understand the bigger picture of their customers’ needs and behaviors.
This can be achieved by conducting market research, regularly engaging with customers, and using data-driven insights to inform their digital marketing strategy.
By taking a holistic approach to digital marketing, companies can ensure they are delivering value to their customers and avoiding the pitfalls of marketing myopia.
To avoid marketing myopia in digital marketing especially with Google Ads, companies should take a holistic approach to their advertising strategy and consider the bigger picture. This can be achieved by:
Customer is a king. If your product and marketing strategies are not according to him, he will leave one day. So knowing about the customer interaction with your product or marketing campaign is a key thing if you really want to sustain and expecting growth for business. Your digital marketing campaigns can help you out in this as they are measurable to much extent.
If you start measuring your campaign data by yourself, it will consume your time in gathering and doing analysis and you won’t be able to give full focus to your customer needs or improved marketing strategies.
Moreover your analysis may go like marketing myopia, you may focus on one thing but you may not be able to figure out other impacts at the same time.
Hence, the PPC Signal tool was created to utilize AI and machine learning capabilities to perform analysis that a typical PPC specialist couldn’t accomplish manually. It offers valuable insights that guide you towards more effective strategies and protect you from the dangers of marketing short-sightedness.
It is very easy to connect with this tool. If you have at least 7 days of data in your Google Ads, just connect it with this tool and in no time you will get amazing insights. It has user friendly interface and provide much ease to explore your data to the next level.
For instance, if you want to optimize your conversions for your online business, you have to navigate to the PPC Signal dashboard and choose the desire signal or insights about conversions.
As you will notice the first signal which is warning you about the conversions are going downwards. This is alarming as your customers are no more converting and you are not marking good return of your marketing effort.
There is an option of exploring your signal by clicking on the Explore button.
After clicking on the “Explore” button, a detail graphical representation of your signal will be displayed on your screen. Â Here, you can compare this conversion trend with “Clicks”. You will notice that clicks has started to drop the same day when conversions have started to move downward. This shows, customer engagement is becoming the reason in gradual drop in conversions.
Drop in clicks could be due to many reasons but following areas should need immediate attention to check:
This way, you’d more likely get your desired result. The PPC Signal also helps in reducing the time needed to manage your campaign, and it eliminates the need to hire more hands or spend more than necessary. The tool uses machine learning and AI to keep your campaign on track and in return it boost your return on investment.
Marketing myopia is a short-sighted marketing approach that focuses more on the needs of a business while neglecting the customer’s needs. This will make the business make decisions that do not align with the needs of the customer. Furthermore, the business will most likely not change with the change in the marketplace.
It happens when the business pays little to no interest to the needs of the customer but focuses on its product or service offering.
Businesses experience marketing myopia when they focus on selling their product offering and not fulfilling their customer’s needs.
Regardless of how big your company is, there is a high chance of falling into the pitfall of marketing myopia. But you can avoid such situations by innovating and adapting to the changes in the market. To adapt to the market, you need to consider changing your product or service offering and also come up with better ways of meeting the needs of your customers.
As a business owner, you need to be aware of the behavioral changes in your customers and also keep a close eye on the new technologies that are sprouting up by the day. If you’re proactive, you can stay ahead of these changes and possibly avoid the pitfall of marketing myopia.
If you’ve fallen into the pitfall of marketing myopia, you can use it as a learning experience. This way, you get to make better decisions in the future and also become aware of the dangers of marketing myopia.
Having a robust knowledge of marketing myopia will help you position your brand for more growth and profitability in the future. And if you’re running multiple campaigns from a single Google Ads account, then you have to consider tracking your performance with PPC Signal.
Now you have a good grasp of marketing myopia, what steps will you take to avoid such pitfalls?
How much did you enjoy this article?
We will help your ad reach the right person, at the right time
Actionable insights discovered for you. Now you can do more in less time.
PPCexpo Keyword Planner will help you align your keywords with the customers’ intent.
Frequent audits will help you optimize your PPC campaign for success.
Visualizations give you the ability to instantly grasp the insights hidden in your numbers.
Experience the new revolution in reporting … click your way to insights, don’t scroll.
Calculate the number of combinations in your PPC campaign. It may surprise you.
Related articles
A landing page is a web page designed to drive specific actions. Learn the essentials of creating high-converting landing pages in our guide.
ROAS calculation can help you evaluate every PPC campaign's performance so that you know which of your campaigns are converting the best.
Discover the marketing lifecycle stages and how they shape customer relationships. You’ll understand their role in driving customer engagement and retention.
