As we head into the new year, it’s super important to take a step back and reflect on what’s working for your business and what isn’t. After all, it’s easy to fall into the trap of repeating what you’ve ‘always done’ or copying what everyone else is doing!
If you want to hit your goals this year, you need to be undeniably aware of the biggest digital marketing mistakes businesses make that can hinder the outcomes of a digital marketing campaign and, consequently, their overall business success. The digital marketing landscape is ever-evolving and it’s tough to keep up, so this blog post will cover the five most common digital marketing mistakes you should avoid this year. We’ve also included actionable recommendations, ideas, and steps so you can hit the ground running ASAP.
So, what common digital marketing mistakes should you avoid this year? This blog post touches on:
- Putting all your eggs in one basket
- Targeting everyone
- Not using data insights
- Following the crowd
- Leaving campaigns ‘till the last minute
Ready? Let’s dive right into it.
Putting all your Eggs in One Basket
One of the most common digital marketing mistakes we see small businesses make is relying on only one or two digital marketing channels to hit their KPIs. Although it’s true that you’ll still reach your target audience through one channel, it’s also true that these target users will frequent many other platforms and are naturally more likely to remember your brand the more often they see it. This is called multi-channel marketing.
Multi-channel marketing combines numerous digital marketing platforms at once to help amplify your reach, make your campaign message more memorable, and support each platform in turn. In fact, the more, the merrier!
Because customers need approximately eight touch points with your brand before converting, the more platforms you’re promoting your products or services on will naturally increase your chance of being noticed and remembered by your preferred audience. Brand awareness and recall are crucial for beating your competitors.
Furthermore, putting effort into multiple platforms will benefit each platform respectively. For example, investing time into optimising your website (perhaps by improving mobile-friendliness and adding quality content to product pages) will improve customer experience and, therefore, the conversion rate of your Social Media or Google Ads.
Let’s get even more specific. For example, a sustainable watch brand uses paid social media ads and organic social media posts on Instagram and Facebook to promote their products. They receive a few purchases every month but are frustrated their overall purchases are not improving.
A competing sustainable watch brand also promotes their products using organic and paid social media. However, they also run Google Ads, liaise with magazines to be included in articles, collaborate with influencers, optimise their website backend, write helpful blog articles, and use a free EDM service to send a monthly email newsletter.
To point out the obvious, the second watch brand will clearly be more successful in the long run. They’re reaching their desired customer base from numerous angles, and by optimising one channel, they’ll naturally improve the performance of the others.
We know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry. Multi-channel marketing doesn’t have to be expensive! We recommend utilising cost-free owned and earned channels and being very strategic about where you use your budget based on your target audience’s behaviour. Making a simple change like this can greatly enhance your digital marketing efforts. To learn how to clearly define your primary audience, read on!
Targeting Everyone is Not a Marketing Strategy
Sorry to break it to you, but when businesses target a broader audience with Social Media or billboard ads, it often isn’t the most effective way to reach their goals and grow a business. This year is all about refining your targeted audience to the right audience and avoiding the wrong audience by building a digital marketing strategy that resonates with them on a deeper level. Pinpointing relevant content to the right people will result in more relevant leads. This comes down to two major factors.
Firstly, by understanding your target audience’s interests, pain points, expectations, and behaviour, you can identify which tactics will be most meaningful, memorable, and effective. This will help you focus on channels or social media platforms that will generate the highest Return On Investment (ROI), therefore helping you achieve better results while also keeping costs under control. After all, there’s no point pouring money into Facebook Ads if your target market is mainly on TikTok!
Secondly, clearly defining your target audience will help you craft your brand identity into something that resonates with them. For people to want to purchase from you, they need to see the appeal! This means aligning your brand values, messaging, and customer experience with your audience’s needs, interests, and pain points. Naturally, this can help avoid targeting the wrong audience, build trust and loyalty and ultimately increase your customer acquisition and retention.
An easy way to create clarity around your target audience is by developing 1-3 audience personas. An audience persona (sometimes called buyer personas) is a fictional representation of your target customer based on real data and research. It helps you guide the creation of targeted digital marketing campaigns and a great social media marketing campaign.
To curate your audience personas, we recommend:
- Analysing your current customer base. Use website and social media data to identify patterns and common characteristics among your most valuable and loyal customers.
- Conduct market research. Use surveys, interviews, and other forms of research to gather information about your target market, such as the primary interests, dislikes, demographics, and behavioural trends of your ideal customer.
- Put it all together. Use Canva to create an aesthetic and easy-to-understand map of your audience personas and ensure everyone in your business is aware of their purpose and value.
NOTE: It’s important to keep in mind that your desired target audience may be different to your real customer demographic. For example, a brand selling clothing for teenage boys may think its primary audience is teenage boys, but its website data reveals mums are actually making the purchase. Read on to learn why data insights about your potential customer base are super important.
Not Using Data Insights
From a marketing perspective, not using data insights is like running your business blindfolded and upside down. Off the top of our heads, here’s a list of benefits you’ll get from using data to inform your digital marketing strategy:
- Allows you to make informed decisions about your target audiences
- Allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns in the planning phase
- Allows you to develop and change your digital marketing campaigns based on previous learnings
- Allows you to allocate budget to channels or platforms that will generate the highest Return On Investment (ROI)
- Allows you to make wider business decisions, such as increasing or decreasing certain stock
- Allows you to set realistic KPIs and evaluate success afterwards.
So, what type of data are we talking about here? Depending on your business and industry, there are loads of data sources you’ll find helpful. Here are a few of the most common, easy-to-use, and helpful:
- Google Analytics
- Web traffic data, like time spent on certain web pages and Purchases
- Audience demographics
- Meta Ads Manager
- Social Media Ad performance, including impressions, Click Through Rate (CTR), purchases, Return On Ad Spend (ROAS), and more.
- Google Ads
- Google Ad performance, including Return On Ad Spend (ROAS), purchases, link clicks, management of paid ads and more
- CRM Systems such as HubSpot
- Customer profiles and communication with your company
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
- Google Search Console
- How Google crawls and indexes your webpages for its Google search results
- Organic social media insights
- Provided by each platform, including Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, etc.
- Reach, impressions, audience demographics and more
Overall, a data-driven marketing strategy allows you to use your marketing budget more efficiently. If you don’t track your different ad formats’ performance, you won’t know if your campaign drives success. By identifying which campaigns and tactics are most effective at driving more traffic to your business, you can optimise your budget and allocate resources to the areas that will give you the highest Return On Investment (ROI), therefore helping you to achieve better results while keeping costs under control and growing your business in the long run. What’s not to love?!
Following The Crowd
This year, definitely do not follow the crowd. With so many businesses vying for attention, it’s crucial to differentiate yourself from your competitors to capture the interest of potential customers and encourage them to choose you when it’s time to purchase. Enter: unique digital marketing strategies!
Incorporating unique digital marketing strategies into your plan for this year will help strengthen your brand identity and establish yourself as a leader in your industry. Done well, they are also more likely to resonate with the interests and characteristics of your primary audience by speaking directly to their needs and desires. This will lead to a stronger and more efficient marketing funnel.
So, how do you come up with unique digital marketing ideas? We recommend:
- Getting inspiration outside your industry. If you’re in the construction industry, it’s totally okay to use a retail or hospitality brand’s digital marketing ideas to fuel your creativity! Be innovative in how you adapt someone else’s ideas to make them your own.
- Getting to know your target audience. What are your potential customers interested in, what makes them excited, and what do they expect from you? Do something they won’t expect, and that will keep them engaged.
- Using multiple digital marketing channels together. Refer to our first point!
- Don’t be afraid to venture out of your comfort zone. Sometimes taking a small risk can produce a big win. If your new idea doesn’t really land, you will have learnt a valuable lesson for next time, which is a win in itself.
Leaving Marketing Campaigns ‘Till Last Minute
Leaving your digital marketing campaigns ‘till the last minute is the easiest way to stress yourself out and underperform on your goals. Frankly, that’s so 2022.
Instead, plan your business and digital marketing strategy in advance to allow time for strategic thinking, challenge or problem identification, and goal setting. This will allow you to use your resources more effectively and efficiently, therefore helping you reach those big 2023 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
But wait, the benefits don’t end there! By proactively planning campaigns and business decisions ahead of big seasonal events like Boxing Day or End Of Financial Year Sales, you’ll find it easier to stay ahead of industry trends and capitalise on opportunities before your competitors. This is becoming more and more important in today’s fast-paced business environment. Being first-choice amongst your competitors won’t happen without hard work – we recommend emphasising your unique selling proposition and engaging with your customers in unique ways that keep you top of mind when it becomes time to purchase (refer to point 4).
Another super important benefit of pre-planning your digital marketing campaigns is the ability to coordinate and align efforts across different teams, departments, and contractors. Campaigns often involve multiple stakeholders, such as your sales, product development, creative, customer service, and marketing teams, so planning in advance ensures everyone can work together towards a common goal.
So, how far in advance should you plan your marketing campaigns? We recommend planning at least three months in advance and forecasting up to six months in advance. This leaves plenty of time for brainstorming, producing content and keeping your suppliers and digital agency in the loop. The best way to stay organised is with a physical or digital marketing calendar.
That’s All, Folks
There you have it! This year, it’s crucial to avoid these five digital marketing mistakes to stay competitive and grow your business. Let’s summarise the key points:
- Putting all your eggs in one basket
- Targeting everyone
- Not using data insights
- Following the crowd
- Leaving campaigns ‘till last minute
By avoiding the biggest digital marketing mistakes and, instead, using the best practice tips and tricks provided in this blog post, you’ll be even more effective at reaching and engaging your target market and increasing conversions with a successful digital marketing campaign in no time. We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again – what’s not to love?!
If you found this article helpful, be sure to share it with your friends and followers so they can crush their own digital marketing this year. And don’t forget, our friendly Client Success Managers are always keen for a chat if you’re ready to get started with our SEO, Google Ads, or Social Media Marketing packages.
Until next time,
The Digital Marketing Team at Springboard Digital.