Digital marketing mistakes hinder your business goals and success. Here are some common marketing mistakes to avoid.
1. Lacking realistic goals
Create a campaign with a clear goal. This can be a contact, a form fill, a subscription, a download, etc. Keep your goal realistic but lofty. Track them using analytics, call tracking and user experience recording. Only the call tracking has a cost. Consider designing a website that answers the most frequently asked questions. Today’s consumers have very little interest in calling you for answers.
2. Targeting too broad of an audience
Start with a nice tight radius around your office. Unless you are a highly recommended referral, few people will travel more than 10 miles from their home or office for a common service. If you run a service business that travels to the customer’s home or business, consider keeping that advertising footprint nice and tight at first. Travel time and fuel are expensive so dominate your own backyard before expanding outward.
3. Having a poor website design
There are plenty of places to find your phone number and address without visiting your website but set the table for a lot of guests.
User-friendly website design is critical. To convert visitors into buyers, you need a website that is informational and inviting.
Compress page elements (e.g., images, GIFs, videos, etc) using a free tool like tinypng.com, to help pages load faster. Google says that bounce rates increase by 32% when a page load time went from one to three seconds, and by 90% when the page load time went from one to five seconds. Page speed is a critical ranking factor for search engines.
4. Neglecting your search engine optimization
Whether searching using a keyboard or voice, your business must address the discipline of Search engine optimization (SEO) to prepare the website for a great user experience and to appeal to search engines ranking criteria. If you want your website to be selected to appear at the top of the search engine results page, this must be earned.
Artificial intelligence is used by search engines to determine the searcher’s “intent” and deliver the website with the best answer. Use tools like Google Trends to research how people search in your market. Use that information to blend keywords and phrases into your relevant content.
Once you’ve selected your target keywords, use tools such as SEO Analyzer and Ahrefs to identify keywords used by your strongest competitors.
The elements of a successful SEO ranking strategy are many and the target is ever-moving. It requires consistent research and tweaking. Depending on the size of your market, and the sophistication of your competitors, it is the most time-consuming task of digital marketing.
5. Not utilizing social media marketing
Social media marketing is a collision of personal and professional relationships. Today consumers research online, then use social channels to avoid mistakes.
Your customers and prospects are on social media, and your business must be too. It provides a unique opportunity to present your business to a new, targeted audience in a visual way.
The average American social media user has 190 “friends”. Present meaningful content and your followers will build an army of their followers. This reinforces recommendations and loyalty to your brand.
- Introduces your company and the problems that you solve
- Interactive communication directly with your fanbase
- Reaches new people with targeted ads based on geo, behavior, job title, etc.
- Increases website traffic & online visibility
- Generates new leads & sales
- Increases in brand awareness & loyalty
- Improved customer experience
Unless you are running a business in a very small market with little competition, digital marketing on your own can be a daunting experience. There are many moving parts that must be researched, implemented, analyzed and adjusted. A great tool in the hands of an inexperienced builder will still generate lousy results.
Are you ready to step up your digital marketing game? Your call to VentraLocal is free.
