11 Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid for a Successful Campaign

A fully serviced digital marketing strategy is made up of a number of different elements. These include some well-known strategies such as SEO and social media marketing, as well as content marketing and email marketing amongst others. However, there are a number of things that can be done wrong with your digital marketing, that could have a detrimental effect on your search rankings and online presence. So, to help you out, I’ve put together a list of 12 “what not to do” examples to help you avoid some of the big mistakes that businesses often make.

#1 Not being targeted enough

With something like email marketing, for example, it might seem like a good approach to send to as many people as possible. Unfortunately, if you take this approach, the most likely outcome is that you’ll end up with a large number of negative responses and unsubscribes without increasing your reach very much at all. Carefully selecting your target audience is a much better way to generate worthwhile and genuine leads. Identify the demographic you’d like to reach and target your approach from there.

#2 Lack of direction

It’s all very well using all of the well-known digital marketing “techniques” but without a strategy or goal, your campaigns can lose momentum and reach a dead end. Yes, it’s important to have a social media presence, produce content and have a great website, but if these things don’t work together, then you’re wasting your time and resources. Creating a bespoke strategy is important, and knowing what you are aiming for. For example, we tailor our approach for each client in order to guarantee that we can get them 1,000 genuine and targetted Twitter followers every quarter. This leads me on to my 3rd point…

#3 Buying followers

Whilst buying followers will give you an impressive follower count to show, it won’t give you the connections with these followers. Don’t be fooled into paying for followers – most of these will be empty, unused accounts, not genuine people, which can prevent you from getting verified on Twitter and Instagram is you’re caught! Instead, look to interact with personal accounts, with faces and names that are posting regularly.

#4 Appealing only to web users

We live in a time where a growing number of people now browse the web not only from desktop computers, but mobiles and tablets. Even if you’re not particularly tech-savvy, it’s important that your website appeals to those who are, otherwise you’ll be missing a large proportion of potential customers that you could be connecting with. What this means is that your website needs to be mobile friendly and scalable. Your web designer or agency will be able to ensure that this is the case. This will not only make your site easier to read and navigate, but it will have a positive impact on your search rankings too – win, win!

#5 Ignoring SEO

In amongst all other digital techniques is SEO. Essentially, SEO asks the question “What will make my website rank higher/lower in Google search?” before implementing changes accordingly to optimise performance and increase search rankings. One simple way of doing this is using industry-specific keywords within your website content.

#6 Missing out on tracking and analytics

Monitoring traffic to your site and analytics of where these visitors have come from can help you to refine your digital strategy. If you’re receiving the most visitors from Google, or from email marketing, you can focus your strategy on the most effective method of generating traffic. Tracking these visits can also give you some information on those clicking through to your site, and allow you to follow up those leads.

#7 Failing to refine what works

Using analytics and measuring what are the most successful channels for increasing engagement will help you to refine what works for you specifically. Every business is different and will need to take a bespoke approach. This can also prevent you from becoming overloaded and unable to manage your digital marketing strategy.

#8 Going social media mad

Refining and careful management also applies for which social platforms you use – simply creating a profile for every different social media platform will not be beneficial for you if your target audience isn’t using them. You also need to research how to use these platforms – for example Twitter will mean posting 5 times per day, compared to fewer, more detailed Facebook and Google Plus posts.

#9 Not creating links

Despite what some people may say, link-building is not dead. In fact, it’s stronger than ever. In the past, many businesses got themselves into a sticky situation by building as many links as possible, regardless of the quality of the sites they were linked from. This can have a negative effect on your search rankings, however done correctly, link-building has a great impact on your SEO. One easy way to build links is to share your content from your website across your social media platforms regularly.

#10 Writing too little, infrequently

This leads me on to the importance of content writing. In order to establish yourself as a thought-leader in your industry it’s vital to be producing fresh, innovative content on a regular basis. Writing a blog once per week is ideal and gives you content to share to build links too.

#11 Lack of patience

Any digital marketing strategy that will reap long-term benefits can take time to build. For example, building up followers can initially seem like a slow process. Don’t be tempted to buy followers, or try do anything that could later be detrimental to your digital strategy. Instead, remain patient and watch the benefits grow and continue for years to come. With this, you’ll also need to keep up to date with any SEO changes and adapt your strategy accordingly.

If you would like some expert advice regarding your digital marketing strategy, give me a call today on 020 7100 0726 and I will be happy to help.

Author: Steve Pailthorpe – Follow us on Google+