It's the middle of March and that means one thing, March Madness! If you're like me, your bracket gets busted pretty quickly because your desires compromise logic, which results in picking something like Bucknell University playing Winthrop University in the championship game.

There's never been a 16-seed team beat a 1-seed in the round of 64. If that ever happens, you better believe I'm going to ignore the fact that I was previously 0 for 40 picking those games, scoff at the 99.8% who picked the 1-seed, and make a misguided declaration along the lines of, "I knew it the whole time! 99.8 percent of people picked Kansas?! What fools! North Carolina Central was the obvious choice! Gosh, I'm a legend!"

Yeah, that will probably never happen; but I can still hope that one day my far-fetched desires will masquerade as logic. And herein lies a metaphor that might be relevant to your marketing.

Here are 5 bracket-busting strategies people use during March Madness that might resemble unsuccessful marketing strategies:

1. Taking shots in the dark 

It's hard to research and educate yourself on 64 college basketball teams. Often times, people implement the coin flip method to pick a winner: heads you go with team A, tails you go with team B. After the pick is locked, you hope the coin fell in your favor. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't.

Wouldn't it be more assuring if you could improve your chances of choosing the right team? The same is true with marketing. Instead of placing an ad and then hoping that your ideal audience sees it, why not do something to improve the chances of your ideal audience seeing your ad? Seems like common sense, right? We're in a time that you can choose exactly who you want to see your ad, yet businesses continue to take more shots in the dark compared to strategically targeting the people who would actually be interested in their product.

2. Not considering the persona

This goes along with taking a shot in the dark. Sometimes you pick a team because you merely look at the surface of the matchup, which usually reflects your own opinions or agendas, and that makes you confident. These are the picks you don't even hesitate on. The pick seems easy because you have a preconceived notion about the team you're picking or the opposing team; but, if you dig deeper, you might realize something important about the personas of both teams. Maybe the team you pick thrives off a fast-paced game, but the opposing team is great at set pieces and they can throw off the rhythm of your team by slowing the game down. When you don't consider the tendencies of both teams, you miss invaluable data that can be game-changing.

When you substitute tendencies or personalities for your own agenda, you're ignoring the buyer's persona, and therefore, the buyer's journey. Understanding the buyer's journey is essential to the success of your marketing. If you don't consider your personas and their journey, you'll constantly be yelling at people about yourself, which completely ignores two stages of the buyer's journey, awareness and consideration. To generate new leads, the awareness and consideration stage are essential.

3. Ignoring current behaviors

Face it, Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, or Kentucky aren't going to win the tournament every year. Although each of these teams have a great chance to win the championship this year, they probably won't be the best picks every year. When filling out your bracket, you have to take into account how each team performed during the corresponding season, and how they performed during the weeks leading up to the tournament. If you don't, you might see your championship team knocked out in the first round.  

Likewise, if your marketing doesn't take into account how people enjoy consuming media during the present-day, you're going to lose them early. 

4. Letting biases steer your decisions

As much as you want your 13-seeded alma mater to make a run to the Final Four, they probably won't. Picking a team based on biases usually turns your bracket red quickly. 

Building your marketing strategies around biases feels safe, but it can be dangerous to the success of your business. Trying to duplicate the strategy that a big company you admire uses might not work for you. Figure out what works well for you and roll with it. 

5. Always picking the favorite

Upsets are inevitable. Always picking the favorite is sure to leave you with red on your bracket. You have to be willing to take chances in order to be more than average. Take a closer look at that 12-seed, there's always at least one that beats a 5-seed.

Don't be afraid to take chances with your marketing. Just as the favorite marketing medium has changed from five years ago, the favorite form of marketing today won't be the favorite five years from now. Entertain that up-and-coming platform. Don't be so quick to write it off as another Myspace.

It's easy for your bracket to get busted early in the tournament, and it's also easy to lose the attention of potential customers early. Your goal is to get to the championship, but you don't start there. There's a journey to get there, and you have to consider how you're going to take your customers with you to the big dance.

To attract more leads, you have turn from a marketer-centric message to a customer-centric message. Learn more tips on how to generate leads in our FREE ebook.

March also means the beginning of baseball season! Read what Moneyball taught us about marketing here.