There’s no room in our hyper-digital economy for digital marketing mistakes. Today, your competition is the brands you already know and new companies who know how to maneuver in the digital-first ecosystem. You need to do everything possible to leverage your investment in the online space when you have a small marketing budget and no digital marketing team.
The best way to up your marketing game is to eliminate these five digital marketing mistakes.
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No Digital Marketing Strategy
One of the most common digital marketing mistakes many small brands make is jumping into the e-commerce world without a plan.
You’ll be wasting your money and time if you don’t have a marketing strategy. A digital plan is more than building a winning website, although this is important.
According to Dami Olugbake, a partner at Connect4, visitors typically spend roughly 90 seconds on a company’s website. He says that most visitors are coming by direct search—they already have a product or service in mind and are comparison shopping. So if you don’t catch them within these 90 seconds, they’ll move to the next brand on their list. Therefore, user experience on your website is critical, but that’s not the end of the story regarding digital marketing.
Today, everyone is on the internet. According to a recent Forbes article on e-commerce trends, 20.8% of retail purchases are expected to take place online in 2023. Furthermore, that percentage is expected to increase to 24% by 2026. So rather than roaming the malls or shopping centers, the first touchpoint with your brand will likely happen online.
In addition, Statista projects that 234.5 million US consumers will hit online retailers to browse products and services, compare prices and make purchases.
All this good news means that you have infinite potential to expand your brand reputation and customer loyalty.
But you won’t know how to create content for your website and social media profiles if you don’t have any idea what you’re trying to achieve.
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- Your digital strategy needs to set measurable goals, a budget, and a timeline.
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- Learn how digital platforms work and identify which ones will help you meet your goals. Then, use social media analytics platforms like NapoleonCat to help you track and measure your engagement across all the digital platforms you use.
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- Do your research, experiment, measure outcomes, and be prepared to pivot if necessary.
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You Haven’t Identified Your Target Audience
You might publish engaging content but won’t reach your marketing goals if you haven’t identified your target audience. Everyone is not your customer.
Before you begin strategizing on your content marketing plan, identify your target audience.
- Who would benefit from your product or service?
- What demographics do you want to reach?
- What are your consumers’ questions and concerns?
- Where does your target audience hang out?
- What about your competitors? Where do their customers hang out?
Our blog article, “Moving From Who to Why,” discusses the importance of adding psychographic data to your consumer persona.
To engage in meaningful dialogue with your potential consumers, you need to know more than who they are and where they hang out. You won’t know what words to use if you don’t understand who they are inside…their beliefs and values…
Psychographic data includes:
- Lifestyle
- Personality traits
- Attitudes, beliefs, and values
Psychographic data is essential today as more consumers gravitate toward mission-driven brands. If you know the values and beliefs of your target audience, you’ll be able to create messages that speak to them.
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Digital Marketing Burnout
A typical digital marketing mistake that many small brands and solopreneurs make is trying to do it all themselves. The result can be disastrous for you and your small business.
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- You’ll lose the valuable time that you need to scale your business.
- You won’t have the time to create, publish, engage, test, and measure your digital marketing campaigns.
- As a result, you might come to dread that part of your job and neglect it or give it five minutes a day.
- Alternatively, you’ll spend so much time immersed in digital marketing that you’ll lose the opportunity to get ahead of industry trends.
- As a result, you might even miss out on time-sensitive opportunities to grow your business.
Once you’ve identified your target audience and the best digital platforms for your goals, you must show up consistently. Therefore, adding a digital marketing specialist to your in-house team or contracting with a digital marketer is worth it.
Digital marketing professionals have their finger on the pulse of e-commerce trends. They know your audience and can seamlessly merge your content marketing campaign with your marketing goals.
Kick this digital marketing mistake out the door, and you’ll have the time to focus on scaling your business.
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Producing Content That Doesn’t Resonate
Another digital marketing mistake many brands make is producing content that doesn’t resonate with their target audience.
When you see how much digital data is floating around on the internet, it’s easy to think you need to produce tons of content every day on every social media channel. But successful digital marketing is not about the amount of content you publish; it’s about quality.
Less is more!
The quality of your content makes the difference between whether anyone reads and engages with it. The higher the engagement rate, the more often your content is shown.
Poor-quality content gets buried in the massive amount of data floating around in the digital ecosystem.
Just imagine there are approximately 7.9 million e-commerce sites in the world today, 2.1 million of which are in the US. So your brand will only float to the top if you consistently produce first-rate, impactful content that resonates with your target audience.
More consumers are online today, but they’re more selective about how they spend that time. So if you want them to stay connected to your brand, you need to produce and publish high-quality, engaging content that speaks to them.
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Not Assessing the Performance of Your Content
The only way to know if your digital marketing strategy is working is to track the performance of your content across all the channels you’re using. At a minimum, you’ll want to know the number of website visitors and their actions when they come to your site. Additionally, you’ll want to track whether you’re meeting your customer acquisition and conversion goals. Finally, if you’re running ads, you’ll want to know if you’re getting a good ROI.
Review your website performance using Google Analytics, NP Digital, or another platform and take full advantage of the analytics data available on your social media channels.
You’ll learn the following:
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- what types of content secure the highest engagement
- how to better optimize your content
- whether any messaging is turning off your consumer audience
- what people are saying about your content (use social listening tools)
- and confirm that your budget is being spent efficiently and that you’re meeting your marketing goals.
Bottom Line
If any of these five digital marketing mistakes resonate with you, now is the time to eliminate them. Set goals, design a strategy to get you there, execute, measure outcomes, and pivot if necessary.
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