Whether you’re a seasoned digital marketer or a novice, you’ll likely make mistakes – or already have – as you undertake new clients and / or campaigns. In this article, I will cover the five most common digital marketing blunders to help you understand how to avoid them or fix them.
NOT KNOWING YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Sometimes, as marketers we get wrapped up in the mechanics of digital marketing, for example, how to use Google AdWords and we spend hours trying to get the metrics right.
The first step in Digital Marketing is establishing who your target audience is. Knowing who your ideal customer is will ensure that your content aligns with their interests, answers their pain points and problems.
As a marketer, you need to use the language that will best resonate with your audiences. Likely, you will use different buyer personas at different times depending on who you’re targeting, their place in the buying funnel and the voice they’re using.
Also, it’s important to set clear and measurable goals to better gauge your digital marketing success. So, whether your goal is to increase traffic, better social engagement, or get more leads – remember to always set smart goals on what that looks like.
This extends beyond knowing the basic demographics. You’ll glean knowledge such as their role in the buying process, what keeps them up at night, their intimate goals…all key ingredients to creating awesome content that attracts them to your brand!
ONE SIZE FITS ALL
Whenever a creator posts content that is not tailored to that platform, it is clearly an afterthought, and consumers take offense to this practice. This negatively affects their impression of the brand. The failure here is lack of social media vision and strategy.
For example, posting on Facebook requires a different strategy from that of posting content on LinkedIn. Why, you may ask? LinkedIn attracts high-end professionals who respond more favourably to content written by thought leaders with an authority in the industry they belong to. This usually includes statistics and actionable tips than a simple link in the bio.
You need to diversify content, so it appeals to the major platforms, while still feeling fresh! Try applying the following steps while creating content for social media:
IGNORING SEO
SEO is a framework for digital marketing. Constantly improving your SEO is a top tactic to increase visibility in search and help your business get found by your target audience.
The excellent news is that there are time-tested SEO techniques to help websites and blog posts show up in search engines. These include:
However, algorithms constantly change. So, what works today may not work tomorrow. Hence, keeping up with the latest SEO practices is crucial to remaining competitive. By not doing so, you’re are committing one of the largest digital marketing mistakes there are.
NO SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
You may opt to develop an organic social media plan, a paid social media plan, or a mix of the two. In either case, it is crucial to include one in your checklist.
Social media is the topmost channels of marketing and is constantly growing and moving forward thanks to developments in the tech industry. It is not only used for branding and communication – it is now also an important advertising channel for digital marketing.
Always remember to focus on quality over quantity. At Merali Digital, we’ve generated more leads via social media than paid search. However, further down the sales cycle, we see that paid search vastly outperforms social media by nearly 100% in terms of the quality of opportunities. This makes sense, as people tend to more narrowly focus their searches as they close in on a purchase. That said, social media is a viable marketing channel due to all the activities taking place on it.
Social Media is one of the best ways to connect with your customers. Once you know your audience, you can begin to measure the data against the demographics to hone in on your customers even more! Have a look at these tips to build an audience that will help you grow online in 2020.
FALLING BEHIND TIMES
I’ve said it once before and I’ll say it again! Digital marketing seems to change almost daily, with trends, technologies, platforms, changes to algorithms and other digital marketing tools always on the horizon.
An example of this is the increasing importance of a website’s user experience on a mobile device. If you have a great mobile experience, you won’t be missing out if Google places more importance on this factor or penalises sites with a poor experience. There is an entire industry built around testing and observing what helps your website rank well in Google and what hurts it. Take advantage of these insights to inform your strategy.
Keep up to date with the latest news by making a personal and team effort to read, digest and experiment. Here are some suggested sources to follow:
- Ad Age
- Search Engine Journal
- HubSpot
- we are social
- Digital Marketing Magazine
One of the many benefits of working with a full-service digital marketing agency like us is that you’ll be able to use our expertise to advance your online marketing efforts. Instead of having to stay abreast of what’s constantly changing, we’ll ensure your website is up to date to give your brand that slight edge in the industry.
To learn more about how Merali Digital can work for you, contact us for a free consultation.
