The digital marketing sphere is constantly changing – people are introducing new trends, tools, and tactics. There are many ways to do digital marketing campaigns ‘right.’ Unfortunately, there are also many ways to do digital marketing campaigns ‘wrong.’ And these mistakes could cost you a lot of money if not handled effectively.
With the speed of development, it is not surprising that most small and medium-sized businesses are confused about using digital marketing in their everyday work.
As a consequence, they spend massive money on digital marketing campaigns that are not working. But the worst part is that if you do online marketing in one of these ways, you will become ‘black sheep’ among your target audience.
The key to success lies in choosing tools or services and your ability to interpret the information you received from various sources creatively.
If you are looking for how to avoid costly online business mistakes, this article is for you!
13 Costly Digital Marketing Mistakes You Need to Avoid Today
Here are some of those costly mistakes that you should try and avoid as a marketer from today:
1. Ignoring Your Target Audience
Let’s start with an obvious mistake: ignoring your target audience. It’s imperative to understand your major customer groups and what they need from your services or products. The more precisely, the easier it is to find them on social media platforms and make connections with them.
In some cases, you would need to use social listening tools like Mention. This tool aims to collect everything about your brand on the web and provide you with a weekly report. Then, considering accumulated data, you can filter out those sources mentioning your company that seem to be interested in promoting your business.
Just think about this: people from different countries come up with different needs at work (and in their leisure time) than you do. It would be good to research these people thoroughly and see how they consume additional content on social media and the rest of the Internet. Then, when you have established what kind of customer your business is targeting – make sure that your actions match these customer expectations.
2. Failing to Use Landing Pages
Landing pages are an integral part of any digital marketing campaign. They represent a single page of your website with a clear purpose – generating leads and bringing the viewer into contact with you, without distractions from other parts of your website.
If your website is about products or services you offer, there will hardly be any people willing to buy them before they get acquainted with you. That’s why each online business owner needs to invest some time in creating great-looking and effective landing pages.
3. Not having a Social Media Presence
These days, every small business owner should know that they have a real opportunity to connect with potential customers through social media. If you’re not active on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or other platforms – you are missing out!
The idea is to passionately inform people about something and inspire them with your passion. And social networks will help you to do this without any additional costs. Of course, it’s up to you how much time and effort you want to invest in creating several different posts each day or week. Still, everyone agrees that being active on various social media sites is vital for success in digital marketing.
4. Not Making the Website Mobile Friendly
More than 60% of your website visitors are accessing the internet with their mobile phones. Therefore, it is wise if your business has an optimized website that works beautifully on all platforms. It is probably one of the most important rules you need to remember if you are a digital marketer who wants to be successful at any cost.
Today, there are several ways to create a responsive or adaptive website. If you don’t have enough skills for such work, you can order this service from professionals and get it done in a couple of hours.
5. Forgetting About Video Marketing
Videos are an essential part of any digital marketing strategy. Some studies say that 72% of customers prefer to watch videos on a website rather than read the same information in text format. Video marketing is also considered one of the best ways to attract brand new leads and boost your conversion rate.
The trick here is to create valuable and compelling content about things people essential. Then, if you do it correctly, your video will go viral across various social media websites, and you’ll get tons of traffic for free.
6. Not Optimizing Your Content for Voice Search
According to a recent study conducted by Google, 27% of all search queries were with the help of such technologies as Siri, Cortana, or Alexa. Furthermore, using your mobile devices, people will ask about products and services they are interested in. Thus, you’ll attract even more potential clients if you have optimized your website for mobile usage and voice search!
7. Neglecting Website User Experience
If you want your online business to grow, you need to think about more than just online marketing strategies. You have to pay attention to the entire user experience on your website and make it as enjoyable and straightforward as possible.
The idea is to create a mind map of what kind of things a visitor needs to do to become your client. Then, you can understand which obstacles will prevent them from fulfilling that goal, so you’ll be able to eliminate them before they notice them. It’s not enough for a user to find information on your website; he should also feel good when using it!
Website speed is also crucial because more than 75% of users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less. If you want them to buy something from your online store, they need to fill out a form first. So all the forms on your website must be fast and easy to use.
8. Ignoring SEO Tips
Search engine optimization remains one of the essential parts of a digital marketing campaign. However, you still need to understand which keywords and phrases people search for when looking for goods or services similar to yours.
The next step would be to optimize your website – if possible – using these keywords so that Search Engines will have no problem indexing your website.
9. Failing to Create a Sales Funnel Strategy
The main idea of the sales funnel is to guide website visitors through different levels of engagement, from the first interaction with your brand (for example, during a conference) until the moment when they order goods or services. In many cases, you can create multiple funnels for each one of your products or services.
10. Not Tracking Your Competitors
You probably know that currently, everyone who wants to build a successful business should be able to track their progress against their competitors. So if your marketing campaign isn’t doing well – try to find out what other companies are doing better than yours and use this information when creating new posts and ad campaigns.
11. Focusing on Short-Term Results Only
This mistake often leads to another error. If you have got one new client or customer a month – it’s normal to be happy and move on. However, if you’re an online marketer who wants to get the bigger picture – work hard on implementing long-term strategies that allow you to be proud of your success in the future as well!
12. Not Doing Your Homework
Some digital marketers are blinded by their desire to make money fast and fail to learn more about what they do before promoting products or services. As a result, these people often lose money because they don’t know how much time and effort should go into each step of their business development process.
Every digital marketer needs to study best practices when creating their online advertising campaigns. Just spend 5 or 10 minutes each day and learn more about the topic you’re working on. Most things are explained in detail in blogs, articles, forums, and books.
13. Not Tracking Advertising Campaigns’ Effectiveness
It’s essential to monitor your advertising campaigns and figure out if they are doing well or not. Remember that creating a new campaign is useless unless it brings conversions into your business. If you don’t track your ads – how can you tell which ones work better than others? Every digital marketer must test their advertisements, optimize them and remove the unsuccessful ones as soon as possible!
Final Words
After you could eliminate all these mistakes from your marketing strategy, you’ll see an increase in your profit. Don’t forget always to test everything – every process, every advertising campaign, and even the tiny details!
All successful online marketers have a list of their successful digital marketing strategies that they can share with you, so make sure you do your homework as well!
If you’re thinking of creating your own business but aren’t sure whether it’s the right time for it – remember what Henry Ford said: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t – either way, you are right.” Even if there is some risk involved, knowing that others did it before inspires new ideas. If someone created a business without having any experience – then why shouldn’t we?
If you are one of those people who need professional help in crafting the right digital marketing strategies for your business, we at PERC can help you do that.
About PERC
At PERC, we love to strategize the best tools, methods, resources, and experiences to provide the most impact to our client’s bottom line. If you would like help navigating the uncertain waters of Digital Marketing, reach out to us today for a free consultation. We’ve been around the block.
