Digital marketing can sometimes be so complicated that we can consider it real science. It’s the number one asset a business can have in 2019, simply because we live in an almost completely digital world. If you want to boost your sales, you’ll have to smart about how you use this weapon. There are some common mistakes people make which hinder them from making their full potential. Staying informed will help you avoid them and achieve your goals in no time.
1. Not setting goals
Where can you get with your digital marketing campaign if you don’t have any goals? Before you start putting things into action, you’ll need to figure out what exactly you want to achieve. Is it just to boost sales? To build brand awareness? To build a community?
Whatever your goals may be, you need to write them down. Only then can you come up with a valid course of action and see what steps you need to take to reach your goals. Otherwise, you’re moving left and right, directionless.
With no goal to achieve, there is no hunger for success and no ambition to lead you. Operation without a concise target is dead from the start.
2. Not having a target audience
You could have come up with the most amazing digital marketing strategy, but still, have no results and no luck. This is because you haven’t established your target audience. Who is going to do business with you when you’re marketing it at the wrong people?
First, you have to establish who your audience is and then come up with a marketing campaign. It doesn’t work the other way around. To help you narrow things down, you can ask yourself three simple questions:
How old is your audience? How much do they make? And do you share the same values? When you answer these questions, you’ll have the frames of the campaign already in the works. It’s all about keeping the people in mind, not the tools.
3. Not listening to your audience
When you’ve figured out who your target audience is, don’t forget to listen to them. Your audience is bound to give you some feedback from time to time, especially if you’re present on social media. People will voice their opinions and ask for things.
If you don’t listen, you’re going to lose them pretty soon. People like when you meet their needs, so not listening can lead them to think you don’t care about them at all. Don’t give them what you think they want, give them what they actually ask for.
4. Too many promotions
What’s the point of a promotion or sale if there’s always a promotion or sale? You should use these two to boost your sales from time to time and clear old stock. If there’s always some kind of sale or promotion, people will get used it pretty quickly. There won’t be a reason to do their shopping now when they know they can just do it for the same price in the near future.
Always being available makes people think they can have your services whenever they want. You’re not going anywhere, so they might as well take time to think and doubt their decision. The longer they think, the less chance there is they’ll do business with you. Playing hard to get, if you will, or introducing the notion of scarcity is bound to help you much more.
5. Not creating quality content
Quality content is mandatory. Even more so, you need content which has a point. Is it a daily blog? A promotional picture? An interesting article? A relatable meme? Whatever you choose to create and post should have a point. You shouldn’t create content just for content’s sake.
If you do so, you’ll basically be creating junk. No one wants to see irrelevant content online and be bombarded with useless pieces of information. There is such a thing as being too annoying. What’s more, creating content just for content sake means that you won’t be perceived as an expert.
In turn, this puts a hole in your trustworthiness and reliability, thus making you lose more business.
6. Not engaging on social media
Social media marketing is an essential part of digital marketing. If you don’t use social media as part of you’re marketing campaign, you’re missing out on a whole aspect of marketing. To reach your target audience, you’ll need to locate it first.
In today’s day and age, most of your audience is on some sort of network. Marketing today goes beyond having a brand name and selling your service or product. People want interaction and attention. They want to know what you stand behind, not just your name and product.
The easiest way to give them what they want is through social media. You should have several social media accounts, across all platforms, to reach as many people as possible. This will also allow you to post a variety of content, giving your audience even more things to interact with.
Of course, being on top of your social media game and managing your accounts regularly will take a lot of time and work. Even while you do it, you may wonder if you’re doing it right. You don’t want your social media campaign to go sour, and it quickly can if you don’t know what you’re doing. This is why most businesses turn to Orion Creative for professional help in managing social media accounts.
7. Not understanding SEO
SEO and digital marketing go hand in hand. If you don’t understand how the principles of SEO work, you’re not going to have a good digital marketing campaign. Most business owners know only the basics of SEO or think it’s completely redundant in their line of work. You used to be able to come by without advanced SEO knowledge, but not anymore.
You can forget about ever expanding and growing if you don’t brush up on your SEO knowledge. You can always find online courses and explanations, as well as hire an external firm to help you. The most important thing is to realize you need help and work on improving yourself.
Conclusion
As you can see, these mistakes are fairly common but also fairly easily avoidable. All you have to do is pay a little extra attention to how you run your business. Making mistakes is part of being human, but so is fixing them and moving on. Once you get the hang of digital marketing, nothing will be able to stop you from growing your business even more and achieving the success you deserve.
About The Author
Nick Brown is a blogger and a marketing expert currently a co-editor for Media Gurus, an Australian business, and marketing resource. He is an aspiring street artist and does Audio/Video editing as a hobby.