There are many ways to boost your online traffic and make more money with your website. But, you need to escape some common digital marketing mistakes. Also, follow the newest trends (here are some digital marketing trends in 2023).
Creating a digital marketing strategy can be an overwhelming process. After all, there are several different factors to consider from budget to brand, from platform to message, and at a time when the financial landscape is as turbulent as it currently is, it feels like there’s an even smaller margin for error than usual. If you are starting a new business, there is even greater pressure to make sure that you get this right the first time. After all, you only get one shot to make a first impression, right?
What’s more, our understanding of what does and does not make for a good digital marketing campaign is constantly evolving in step with the constant developments in new platforms, customer trends, and the way that search engines such as Google update their algorithms. What felt like a tried and tested method five years ago can almost certainly be put into the trashcan at this point, especially given how much time consumers spent online during the Coronavirus pandemic and how competitive the marketplace became as a result.
The good news is that digital marketing is not a process where you have one shot and then you’re done. Every campaign is an opportunity to tweak, develop, to refocus your efforts. You are always going to have the opportunity to break down your results and plan ahead accordingly. What’s more, all these failed attempts mean that there are a lot of mistakes that we know about, and which we can warn entrepreneurs and new business owners about before they launch their new campaign. Here are a few classic digital marketing mistakes that you will need to avoid.
Neglecting To Put Together A Clear Strategy Before Launch
We’ll start with an obvious one, but it bears saying loudly so the people in the back can hear it: do not launch your advertising campaign without a strategy. This is the kind of last-minute thinking that can result in a loss of investment, a loss of time, and a loss of resources. Of course, it’s always tempting to strike while the iron is hot, but there are so many ways that a marketing campaign can shoot off in entirely the wrong direction and leave you staring at your website stats wondering where everyone is.
This is one of the reasons why it can be so important to consult with a marketing agency, as they will be able to walk you through every step of a campaign after helping you lay out a holistic strategy and game plan for your business goals.
So, don’t make one of the common digital marketing mistakes to not have a clear strategy before you launch your campaign.
Forgetting That It Needs To Be About The Customers, Not The Product
We understand that this may seem a little counterintuitive. After all, surely the point of a marketing campaign is to spread the word about the product or website that you are advertising, right? What you need to remember is that your potential customers and clients are being swamped with ads every single second that they spend online.
How many pop-ups or auto-play ads did you ignore on your way to this article? If you do not give them a reason to care, something to engage their interest beyond a simple product, then you are giving them no reason to click through. The key to engagement is an understanding of who they are, what they want, and where they are, which brings us to our next point.
Trying To Hit Every Single Platform
This is one of the most common digital marketing mistakes.
With so many different platforms out there, it can be tempting to try to hit as many as humanly possible. After all, you never know where a potential customer or client is, right? Surely it makes sense to initiate a blanket campaign to leave no stone unturned, doesn’t it? Sadly, while going big and going wide may sound good in principle, it can have the opposite effect to the one you desired. Instead of bringing in clicks from social media platforms, you have only just heard of, you could end up with a wall of silence and a bill for clicks that didn’t translate into sales or commitments. To avoid this happening, you need to make sure that you know exactly where you want your campaign to be directed.
A good marketing agency will take the time to understand your brand and the message you want to get out there, what your business objective is, and to get to grips with who your target audience is to then create a customized strategy where you will see the best results from marketing. If you’re going after an older demographic, for example, is it really worth spending time and energy thinking about how TikTok could fit into your campaign?
This is where programmatic advertising has proven to be so helpful for businesses. Marketing experts use AI-powered technology that automates buying of online ad space. It streamlines the digital ad buy process across channels into one platform. Combine that with human expertise in strategizing and hyper-targeting capabilities, hands-on management like monitoring, optimization, and data analysis, you’re in store for big wins! You can learn more about how programmatic advertising helps businesses of all sizes thanks to the team at War Room, which has worked with huge brands and exceeded industry benchmarks.
Losing Sight Of The Messaging
We have already mentioned the fact that anyone browsing online is going to be making their way through a wall of noise, and it can sometimes seem like the best way to cut through that is by shouting the loudest. This is where you will see pop-ups and ads screaming about their amazing offers, percentages off, and making promises that seem too good to be true. If you take this route, there are two ways it can go wrong in a big way.
The first is that your marketing will simply be ignored. After all, everyone is making the same promises, and most of us are savvy enough to know that something which seems too good to be true usually is.
The second is that you will get an awful lot of people clicking through who have no idea what it is that you have to offer and may very well have no interest in it. Those people will click away just as fast as they got there. You don’t want to waste precious ad dollars on low-qualified leads, right?
How do you avoid this? Well, you need to make it clear in your marketing what it is that you have to offer and what it is that sets you apart from the competition. Every business is fighting incredibly hard for the exact same pairs of eyes that you are right now, and you need to have a clear idea of what you have to offer that they don’t. If you are just flinging another anonymous sales opportunity, then people will scroll right past. If you can not only demonstrate an understanding of what the customer or client is looking for but also demonstrate that you are the kind of business and brand that they want to get on board with, you will see people clicking through who want to stick around.
Thinking It’s Over When You Launch
Oh no, the journey is just getting started. If you want to make sure that your marketing campaign is a success, you will need to stay on top of every report, every update, to make sure that you can adjust the things that aren’t working and fine-tune what is. You will need to be available to answer any queries or concerns from potential new customers. This is about building something as much as it is launching.
