We’ve updated our popular "Scary Practices Still Haunting Marketers" SlideShare with new information and new monsters just in time for All Hallow’s Eve. Dig in for some frightfully good insights.

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. These ten sinister monsters can
suck the life out of your marketing
program. So sharpen your
(metaphorical) stakes, and get ready
to do battle with the undead.
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. 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 Lead Gen Forms can help you reduce your cost per lead by 30%.

5. Z O M B I E S E O S T R AT E G YZ O M B I E
S E O
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outdated tactics, you may have a shambling, groaning imitation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.
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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. The Gothic tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was the
ultimate misalignment in personalities. Misalignment
between sales and marketing can lead to some
frightening outcomes — like a dip in your revenue.
But alignment between sales and marketing has
never been more attainable — or more important.
Technology such as CRM systems and marketing
automation have enabled sales and marketing to be
more aligned on lead and revenue goals than ever
before. And alignment between the two departments,
often through account-based marketing, can lead
sales and marketing to reconcile with each other in a
way that Jekyll and Hyde never could.

12. Werewolves change with every full moon,
transforming from man to wolf and back again. Do
your content marketing plans change just as often?
Research shows that the most effective content
marketers have a documented and strategic content
plan. Make sure to make a content marketing plan
and stick to it, creating and measuring your content
performance with the plan in mind. Or you may find
yourself howling with frustration at the moon.

13. Michael Myers from “Halloween,” Jason from “Friday the 13th,”
and any innumerable masked murderers from slasher movies
long ago moved from compelling to clichéd. Beware doing the
same thing and using clichéd stock images in your content.
Stale stock photographs can kill interest in your products and
services. Don’t be afraid of taking a chance with photos and
illustrations that step outside your comfort zone. It could
unmask renewed interest in your company.

14. 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.

15. Learn how to avoid other horrors that ensnare marketers with our
Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to Content Marketing.