There is a need to look at the what-should-NOT-be-done side of things as well. This is essential so that you do not fool yourselves into thinking that you are on the right path and keep wasting money without getting an ROI.
When you know that you don’t know something, you can find out. However, when you don’t know that you don’t know, such a situation is risky. Here, is a list from my side to make you aware of some undetectable errors you might commit in your digital marketing pursuit.
1. Promoting Rather than Problem Solving:
Beating your own drum is something that doesn’t go well with the internet-savvy people looking out for any product/services. They are bombarded with promotional information continuously, you don’t want to do the same thing and get lost in the crowd.
Don’t boast about how good your product/services are, tell them how it can help solve their problems. They have come to your site or your ad, looking out for a solution, provide them that and you will hit the bulls-eye.
While it is okay to display your achievements, stage even that to appear more for ‘you-the-customer’ rather than the ‘I-me-myself’ attitude. How? Show client testimonials! And let your audience think if you can solve the problem for your existing clients, then you can for them as well. Be customer-centric, portray your product/services as solutions and see the magic.
2. Relying Heavily on any one Marketing Channel:
Doing this mistake would not only throw your digital marketing budget out of balance, but can reverse slingshot your revenue. You may have implemented many strategies throughout your experience, out of which say one or two may have worked the best.
And its the digital marketing mantra that one should maximize efforts on what works best; relying too much on this mantra could be dangerous. What if this channel suddenly becomes ineffective? What if the organic traffic that you were so proud of drops overnight thanks to the unannounced updates search engines come up with.
Such a repercussion would cause serious damage to your bottom line revenue. Therefore, resist the temptation to pour all the efforts into one channel and create a robust well-rounded multi-channel based marketing strategy.
3. Ignoring some Marketing Channels:
This point is similar to the point above, yet different in the way that it proposes using every channel whenever the time is right for your business. It is understandable that a few channels like pay-per-click might instantly thrust you into the limelight, but you should not ignore the other seemingly slower channels.
While it important to leverage the high-ROI-producing channels at the beginning, at a later stage venturing out into the others should be the aim of your marketing strategy. Invest your due efforts in SEO, no matter how time-consuming. 6 months down the line, when the search engines would start paying you back with relevant traffic, you will thank yourself you did it.
Go social; get your name out there. But, select the social channels carefully. LinkedIn and Twitter works best for B2Bs and the famed Facebook is the go-to channel for B2Cs. As you progress, throw in email marketing into the marketing mix, you will be surprised with its potential.
4. Not Assigning Numbers to Campaign Goals:
«Isn’t this basic», you may think! Well… we usually deep-dive into the advanced stuff and forget the basics most of times. So, set measurable goals for your campaigns! Say, you want to increase the number of leads generated for a B2B company, set a goal of +20% in a given month, then work towards it.
Don’t just say, I want to increase the leads – that’s just wishful thinking! If you define your goals in terms of numbers is when you’ll be able to scale your efforts, otherwise you’ll keep stepping in all directions without moving an inch ahead.
In addition, remember, you are investing money in your efforts; the person who is carrying out the campaigns doesn’t come free. Moreover, if you are investing money in paid marketing, not setting measurable goals is sure-shot recipe for disaster.
5. Poor Data Interpretation:
If you have ever seen the analytics dashboard, you’ll see how it shows different traffic channels like organic, direct, paid, referral etc. Now, direct traffic interprets into people manually typing in your website’s URL and coming in.
However, you need to make sure that the direct traffic numbers doesn’t consist of your internal employees. Ignoring this would result in data dilution and wrong interpretation of data.
Besides, choosing the wrong metric to define your data could be disastrous. For example, if you have a high ‘pages per visit’ or ‘average visit duration’, you may feel that your customer is spending more time on the site, whereas the reality would be your visitors are not finding what they are looking out for.
In conclusion, the 5 points given above are not about the tips or tricks of digital marketing, but more about its core. If you avoid these, you can make any campaign rock, while extracting the maximum bang for your buck.