Digital marketing is a field that evolves at a rapid rate, but it is essential that you keep on top of things as a business owner. The online world seems to be one that will only continue growing in popularity, so your company needs to be ready to be at the forefront of any changes and developments that occur. While you are likely to have already read a lot of information about digital marketing strategies that you should take, you may not have read all that much about things you should avoid doing. This is what we will be focusing on within this article.
By reading about some of the most common mistakes that companies make, you will put yourself in the strongest position to avoid repeating them. Trial and error is an approach that occurs naturally in a lot of businesses, but if you can cut back on the errors as much as possible, you should find that the path ahead of you is much smoother. So, let’s get going with the top five digital marketing mistakes that your business should avoid.
1. Failing to establish clear goals
Like any strategy that you put in place, you need to have a clear idea of exactly what you are trying to achieve. Otherwise, you won’t have any measure of what you are working towards and you are likely to directionless in your approach. Rather than vague aspirations, your goals should be clearly measurable as much as possible so that each of your objectives is clearly supported. When you have these goals, you can also evaluate how challenging they have been to hit and whether or not you need to shift your approach. After all, a digital marketing strategy is made up of a number of different components so you need to decide which aspects take precedence over others.
2. Not looking closely at your analytics
A digital marketing campaign is not something that you can simply set in motion and leave to run its course. You need to be monitoring things on a regular basis, ensuring that its performance is meeting the required level. There are plenty of analytical tools out there which allow you to monitor exactly where traffic is coming from to your site.
That doesn’t mean that you need to be worrying if there is a drop one day, but you should be looking at the wider trends that will make a difference to your overall strategy. As an example, the channel that is providing the highest volume of traffic may be returning the lowest quality of leads. Therefore, you need to be focusing your attention on converting the traffic you are obtaining into buyers rather than browsers.
3. Not testing your marketing strategy
Your success or failure in digital marketing hinges on how much ongoing testing you do to ensure that you always remain on track. Campaigns can be adjusted as you go along, but not unless you keep a close eye on what is going on. Instead of leaping to conclusions about why your strategy is not working, you need to do the proper testing so your hunches are backed up by actual evidence. So, take a look at options like pay per click management. You should be testing each and every aspect of your strategy to make sure that it is having the desired effect.
4. Always jumping on the bandwagon
There are always going to be new trends in digital marketing, but that doesn’t mean that you always have to jump on the bandwagon with each new one. You should be looking to strike a balance between staying current and not spending your money on fads which are not going to further your digital marketing strategy. Even if you decide not to implement them in your own business, it is still important to know about all the latest trends so you can make a fully informed decision about whether to implement them or not.
A common mistake that businesses make is to assume that because a platform is in vogue at the moment, they need to start using it at the earliest possible opportunity. But you need to decide whether or not it is right for your business. It is always worth speaking to other business owners or experts in marketing who can give you advice as to whether something is here to stay or whether it is simply a passing fad.
5. Targeting the wrong audience
Your campaigns need to be targeting a very specific audience, otherwise, they are always in danger of falling flat. So, before you implement a strategy, you need to make sure you have a detailed profile of your audience so you know what will best appeal to them. It may be that social media is your most effective approach, particularly if you are targeting a younger audience. You may find that email marketing is the thing that you need to be focusing on. The more information that you have on your customers, the better.
6. Underestimating the importance of mobile
With more and more people using their smartphones to access the internet, you need to ensure that you have a coherent mobile strategy as part of your overall marketing strategy. So, with everything that you are doing online, you should ensure that you are considering how effective it is on all of the different devices out there that can access the internet. After all, some studies have shown that the mobile share of website traffic is now above 50 percent. You want to be making things as easy for your customers as possible, and streamlining your mobile approach is one of the best ways of doing this.
7. Not being social on social media
The whole point of social media is that you should be interacting with your customers. So, if you have social media accounts that you are not utilizing, you are missing out significantly. First of all, you should determine the accounts that are going to be most useful for your business. Facebook and Twitter are the most obvious and popular ones for companies, but if you have a particularly ‘visual’ business, Instagram and Pinterest are good options as well.
Make sure that you have a plan of posts that you are going to be putting up. You should be mixing promotional ones about your business with news and entertainment-based ones. Otherwise, people are likely to lose interest or get frustrated by the amount of advertising you are doing. When customers get in contact with you, make sure that you respond to them in a reasonable amount of time. Though you may choose to update your plan over time so you can respond to current news stories, it is worth preparing some interesting posts so your accounts are not left dormant for an extended period of time.
Though it is not always easy to ensure that your brand stays successful in its digital marketing, the rewards are always going to be worth it in the long-run. Of course, you will inevitably make some mistakes and missteps along the way, but avoiding the ones we have already talked about will stand you in good stead.
So, as a recap, you need to make sure that you establish clear goals and analyse your strategy along the way. You do need to be making sure you have a mobile-friendly strategy and use social media accounts wisely. Though you want to keep up with current trends, don’t just always jump on each new bandwagon – make sure it is right for your audience.