By Helena Alcoverro, on 1 February 2024
Marketing myopia is a condition where marketing strategies excessively focus on promoting the brand's products or services, neglecting customer needs and prioritizing short-term gains over long-term benefits.
Causes of Marketing Myopia
Companies adopting this approach often become self-centered and overlook market changes as well as the evolving needs of their target audience. They may fall into the self-deception of assuming no competitors will emerge, which can lead them to relax their efforts and not have truly effective marketing strategies. Small and medium-sized enterprises are more susceptible to marketing myopia than larger corporations due to limited resources for advertising.
Pressures and urgent concerns might sideline marketing priorities, and a fear of change within companies can hinder a shift in marketing strategy.
If you sense any of these issues in your company, read on; it might help.
Negative Effects of Marketing Myopia
Marketing myopia can lead to minor declines in sales or the complete closure of a business. Additionally, it can cause:
- Insufficient Marketing ROI: Marketing myopia results in a poor return on investment when campaign gains fail to surpass their expenses, as customers are not attracted to the offerings.
- Missed Opportunities: Strategies affected by marketing myopia fail to capture the attention of the target audience and meet their needs, causing brands to lose potential customers.
How to Identify If Your Strategy Suffers from Marketing Myopia
To determine if your company is affected by marketing myopia, ask yourself:
- What are your customers' pain points?
- What do your marketing analyses reveal about your market niche?
- What does your target audience value most?
- Who is your direct competition?
- What are the marketing trends in your sector?
Inability to answer these questions may indicate that your campaigns are falling victim to marketing myopia.
Overcoming Marketing Myopia
Being aware that marketing myopia is your main problem is already a breakthrough, because many brands do not realize where their mistake is and disappear without knowing that their problem had a solution.
Once the cause has been detected, now is the time to get to work. Answering the above questions is a great start and will help you to better target your marketing strategies. The key is to start putting customers at the center and give them what they need and want.
In addition to this, the following actions will help you avoid or overcome marketing myopia.
Design Your Buyer Persona
A buyer persona is a fictitious character that encompasses all the main characteristics of your ideal customer. Defining it in writing will help you better target your marketing strategies and know which content is the most appropriate.
Establish Long-Term Goals
Instead of looking ahead to the next month or the next year, set your sights on 2 or 5 years from now. This will help you create strategies with much more perspective so that they are not ephemeral and really have a lasting impact on the public.
Don't forget that sometimes it can be worth losing short-term gains to get more in the long run.
Sell Benefits, Not Just Features
It is not a bad thing that in your marketing strategies you communicate to your audience the characteristics of your products or services, but you can't stop there. For example, it is fine to say what the table you are selling is made of and what its color and measurements are. But, you must not forget to tell the buyer what it will provide: the possibility of eating with their family in a comfortable way, having a dining room with a design that is pleasing to the eye, making it easy to clean stains, etc. What really convinces consumers is knowing the benefits they will have in their daily lives.
Convey Your Uniqueness
Why should your target audience choose you over your competitors? It is very important that you convey your USP in your campaigns because this is what will stay in the consumer's mind and make them choose you when in doubt.
It is not about saying that you are the best, something that in fact is typical of marketing myopia, but about explaining why the consumer's life will be better if they choose you. As you can see, it's all about putting the customer at the center of your strategy.
