^{(The original article by Vanessa McQuade can be found HERE.)}

Marketing. Everyone has an opinion. Some are good, most are not and few are backed by data and facts. So, how do you figure out what to do?

For the last three years, business has been booming. We are now facing headwinds and need to sharpen our approach to maintain healthy growth.

With that in mind, here are five common marketing mistakes to avoid in order to set yourself up for success.

#1: Marketing to the wrong part of your customers' brain

People make decisions emotionally, and then rationalize those decisions intellectually. We first need to engage the limbic brain, responsible for emotion and decision making.

Author Simon Sinek’s research dove into how the best leaders communicated. Long story short, they communicated through purpose and emotional engagement. A famous example of this is Martin Luther King crying out “I have a dream!”, not “I have a plan.”

We have to speak with purpose and let the world know what ...