Digital marketing is essential in building the foundations of your brand and in strengthening its connections today. While it has become a meta for modern-day marketing, it’s still a continuously evolving playing field where you need to keep sharpening your tools to stay in the game. As with all the other facets of marketing, there’s an abundance of strategies and practices you can employ to improve your performance and achieve your desired results.
But truth be told, not all of them are as useful as you think. Besides, digital marketing is not a one-size-fits-all discipline that you have to try over and over again to know which ones do not work. You just need to find the right nuts and bolts to tighten things up— and a few screws to set aside!
Here are some of the common digital marketing mistakes you should look out for:
1. Making everyone your target audience
(source: DigitalSilk, HubSpot)
Casting a wider net into the ocean of prospect leads won’t guarantee you more fish to catch. The lack of a clearly defined audience and targeting everyone is inefficient, costly, and wastes time without yielding favorable results since you don’t know who you’re reaching out to.
A better approach is to identify a specific buyer persona and provide solutions for their needs through the niche of your business. Think about it this way, your chances of converting leads to sales are higher when you focus on a specific target market rather than trying to capture everyone’s interest.
2. Spending more than necessary on paid ads
(source: European Innovation Academy)
Paid advertisements help expand your brand’s reach and are rewarding when done right. But proceed with caution; without a solid strategy, spending too much of your budget on paid ads will not do the trick and might be more costly than rewarding!
To turn this potential mistake into an effective strategy, you need to define your target audience and refine your ads to fit their demographic. Experimenting with ad formats and content types could also help identify what works best for your audience before running paid ads with a clear intention.
3. Not utilizing SEO strategies
(source: DigitalSilk, Blaksheep Creative)
Skipping out on search engine optimization or SEO can set you back in the fast-paced world of digital marketing. You might think that SEO could be an added expense, but utilizing this tool is an investment that will put your brand in the lead. Staying on top of your competitors in terms of visibility and attracting organic traffic is worth it in the long run.
But keep in mind SEO is only effective when you use the right keywords paired with quality content. Talk to your audience and do your research to know what they’re searching for. Put those keywords to good use!
4. Lacking a solid social media strategy
(source: HubSpot, Wild Creek Web Studio)
Posting content on social media without a plan is like shooting an arrow without an aim in sight. Without setting a goal, strategy, or schedule for your content, it won’t be able to deliver on your intentions. On top of that, having no solid social media plan could just be a waste of your time and resources.
Make social media work for you by setting goals and laying out steps to achieve them. Align your content and posts with your audience’s interests, preferred platforms, and active hours for peak performance. And remember, it pays to be consistent!
5. Concentrating on quantity, not the quality of content
(source: DigitalSilk, Blaksheep Creative)
The golden rule of content is quality, not quantity. Pushing out content for frequency or presence isn’t the best way to go and could eventually cause fatigue with your audience. You want to make sure that your audience receives quality content that’s relevant and useful to them.
Instead of overproducing, focus on making the quality of your content great — even if it means that you have to post less often. Releasing fewer but more thoughtful content over several not-so-great ones leaves a better impact. Stick to your niche, present credible facts, stay updated with trends, and maintain consistency is the recipe for success.
6. Keeping client testimonials hidden
(source: DigitalSilk, Wild Creek Web Studio)
Case studies and testimonials are social proof that your brand lives up to what you offer, and not utilizing them is a missed opportunity. Feedback from your clients provides new and potential prospects reassurance that you’re the best at what you do.
Post these social proofs on your social media or put them up on your website to build trust with your audience, improve lead generation, and eventually increase conversions!
7. Focusing on Vanity Metrics
(source: Blaksheep Creative, David Michael Digital)
Vanity metrics pertain to the number of likes, views, downloads, impressions, and others that accumulate when your brand expands its reach. Sure, having a million views or thousands of likes on a post might sound great, but it doesn’t exactly convert them into your regular paying customers, active users, or whatnot. Focusing on these metrics can give you a false sense of success when you haven’t been making real progress on your goal.
Instead, you can just use these metrics as a guide. Focus on your progress of hitting your goals of converting leads to sales, generating more revenue, or achieving whatever you want for your business.
Different strategies work for different people, and you must carefully decide which strategies to capitalize on. After all, you would know what’s best for your brand or business! The important thing is to be aware of what possibilities could positively or negatively impact your goal and stick to the strategies that would yield the best results.
If you want to learn more about digital marketing strategies that will work for your brand, we’re here to help! Send us a message.
References:
European Innovation Academy (2019), 10 Deadly Digital Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
HubSpot (2021), The 13 Worst Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid & How to Fix Them
DigitalSilk (2022), 10 Common Digital Marketing Mistakes To Avoid (And How To Avoid Them)
Wild Creek Web Studio (2022), 6 Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2022
Blaksheep Creative (2022), Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid In 2022
David Michael Digital (2022), 7 Biggest Marketing Mistakes To Avoid In 2022 (Especially Number 4)
