Be afraid, be very afraid... Halloween is almost here, and everyone from your neighbor to your local dentist is celebrating the macabre. Ghoulies, ghosties, long-legged beasties—you name it, someone has an inflatable version of it perched on their front lawn. In keeping with the spooky spirit of the holiday, you can do a little monster-hunting of your own. But don’t book a flight to Transylvania just yet. There may be plenty of truly heinous fiends lurking in your own marketing practices. The following sinister seven monsters can suck the life out of a full funnel marketing program. So sharpen your (metaphorical) stakes, and get ready to do battle with the undead.

1. 7 Scary Practices Still Haunting B2B Marketers

2. Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Marketing practices up to no good
Will frightenize y’all’s neighborhood
—Vincent Price, “Thriller” (sort of)

3. Halloween is almost here, and everyone
from your neighbor to your local dentist
is celebrating the macabre. Ghoulies, ghosties,
long-legged beasties—you name it, someone
has an inflatable version of it perched on their
front lawn.
In keeping with the spooky spirit of the holiday,
you can do a little monster-hunting of your own.
But don’t book a flight to Transylvania just yet.
There may be plenty of truly heinous fiends
lurking in your own marketing practices.

4. The following sinister seven monsters
can suck the life out of a full funnel
marketing program. So sharpen your
(metaphorical) stakes, and get ready
to do battle with the undead.

5. GHOSTS IN YOUR
EMAIL DATABASE

6. Brush the dust off your database, pry open the
lid (imagine a sufficiently spooky creeeeaak),
and look inside. Do you see skeletons? Cobwebs?
More broken and inactive accounts than healthy
ones? Can you send out an email without being
beset by mailer daemons saying your message
was undeliverable?
If your database has more dead links than
a sausage factory, it’s time to clean house. Purge
those inactive accounts and start replacing them
with new leads. LinkedIn SlideShare has a lead
capture function that can turn your best decks
into lead-gen powerhouses.

7. ZOMBIE SEO STRATEGY

8. SEO is a rapidly-evolving, ever-changing field.
If you are using outdated tactics, you may have
a shambling, groaning imitation of SEO still
struggling along, but it can’t have much life left
in it.
Getting the most out of your SEO efforts takes
brrrraaaaaaains. Start with these SEO resources
to get up-to-date. Make sure you’re optimized
for mobile and that your keywords are on
point, and you can avoid being a snack for
a zombie horde.

9. VAMPIRE PROJECTS

10. Most marketing departments have a few
Nosferatu-style projects lurking in the
dark corners. Only instead of sucking blood,
these vampires suck money out of your budget
without delivering ROI.
Take a long, hard look at your analytics. When
you identify a vampire project, don’t keep it
around—the stakes are too high. For the future,
keep in mind that it’s easier to identify and
avoid vampires in your marketing efforts if you
have a solid strategy, measurable goals, and the
data to evaluate progress.

11. FRANKENSTEIN’S MARKETING
SOFTWARE STACK

12. What does your marketing automation
process look like? Is it a clean, organized
flow from platform to platform? Or is it built from
layers of old subroutines, software bolted
together until it blinks and sits upright on the slab?
Most marketers have at least a little Frankenstein
in their DNA. But real software integration can
make you more efficient, make your campaigns
more effective, and make the whole process
easier to track.

13. THE DATA MONSTER
IN THE CLOSET

14. When we were kids, we would pull a blanket
over our heads to stay safe from monsters.
Now we know that a flimsy blanket is no match
for monster claws, and the monster doesn’t
disappear just because you can’t see it. Yet
when it comes to data-driven marketing, many
marketers are still cowering under the covers.
Like it or not, data-driven marketing is changing
the industry, and those who embrace it will see
better results than those who ignore it. Throw
back the blankets and stare your data monster
in the face, then start reorganizing your team
to make data and creative work together.

15. MUMMIFIED MOBILE
EXPERIENCE

16. You know what movie monster has never been
scary? Mummies. They’re like zombies, only
less effective. They’re slow; they’re monosyllabic;
they’re relics of a bygone time. Slow, simple,
antiquated…Do any of these adjectives describe
your site’s mobile experience?
Are you still forcing mobile visitors to pinch
and zoom to see text, or use megabytes of data
just to see one image? More than half of web
browsing time is on mobile devices. Don’t leave
half of your customer base grappling with
a mummy: optimize for mobile.

17. THE HEADLESS
SOCIAL ACCOUNT

18. In Washington Irving’s story “The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” a headless
horseman rises every Halloween. Has your
social media strategy lost its head and have
you, busy as you are with your marketing
efforts, neglected some of your social
media accounts? Make sure to update
your accounts regularly and make them
work for your organization. Your LinkedIn
Company Page is a good place to start.

19. Once you have beaten these seven
marketing monsters, your full funnel
marketing efforts can finally survive and thrive.
But remember to keep improving and stay on
the lookout for effectiveness-draining practices.
Because if there’s one thing a monster loves,
it’s coming back for a sequel.

20. Learn how to avoid other horrors that ensnare marketers with our
Sophisticated Marketer’s Crash Course
in Full Funnel Marketing.