Whether you are just learning the ropes of digital marketing or are an expert in running a marketing campaign, you need to keep one thing in mind – digital marketing is instrumental for business success. On the other hand, if you are relying on buzzwords which can create a vicious circle where you and your team keep making the same mistake over and over again, you are destined to face failure. In other words, marketing can make or break your business.
After 5 years of experience in the digital marketing industry, I have come to realize that companies tend to make the same mistakes regardless of the size of the project and stages of team development. Here is the list of the most common mistakes you need to avoid if you want your team to run a successful marketing campaign.
Related: How to Grow Your Business With Email Marketing
No marketing strategy
According to the research, almost 50 % of businesses don’t have a clearly defined marketing strategy or a plan. However, doing things randomly and on the fly will only cause damage to your business and will only set you back. If you want to keep things under control and have a clear overview of each and every step of your marketing campaign, you need to develop a marketing plan. Also, make sure you don’t target the general public, but focus on the audience that is truly interested in the product you are trying to sell and then, find the market where you can gain a competitive advantage. Once you established a strong customer base, you can expand your campaign on other channels as well.
Not investing in powerful content
Once you have established an initial customer base, it’s time you start working on boosting your brand’s visibility and generating new leads. Instead of wasting your time on crap content, invest your time and resources and hire professional content and technical writers that can produce a high-quality and vibrant piece of content that your audience will love reading. Create something valuable that your readers can benefit from and that can give them answers and actionable tips. The content needs to be real, meaning it has to be:
- Relevant
- Educational
- Actionable
- Lead-generating
Long are the days when writing a poor quality content and using the right keywords was enough to increase traffic and draw more visitors to your site. If you fail to keep up with trends and produce an original and powerful content, you are more likely to fall victim to the next marketing mistake.
Letting everybody “have their say”
While giving everybody on the team opportunity to participate in both creative and decision-making process is instrumental for achieving positive results, letting each employee express their own opinion can only cause confusion. If everybody on the team has their say, you will spend more time contemplating and have difficulty making the final decision. Instead of listening to everybody’s opinion, consult the people whose job is to create marketing assets and who have experience in that specific field. If you want your team to participate actively, share their thoughts and provide necessary feedback, consider investing i some user-friendly marketing project management tools.
Failing to measure results
How can you know how well your marketing campaign is performing unless you measure each and every step you make during the project development? If you don’t measure your campaign’s progress, you won’t have an insight into how much return you made on your investment. Use appropriate marketing metrics and measure if your marketing campaign has met the goals your company set for it. Also, consider investing in effective analytic tools like Kissmetrics or Marketo to view the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Don’t shy away from asking your customers how they heard about you and always try to maintain contact with them during the campaign.
Choosing the wrong media channels
One of the typical mistakes even the most experienced marketers make is choosing the wrong set of media channels to promote their product. While there are a number of media platforms you can use to boost your brand’s visibility, choosing too many of them or the ones that are not frequently visited by your target audience could sabotage the entire marketing campaign. Prior to choosing what channels to use, do a small research and identify what platforms your users are most active on. Once you have identified your social channels, start creating powerful content and use it to engage your users.
