The two most important digital marketing channels for any organisation, whether a startup or an established brand, are its website and social media presence. It’s important, then, to give both of these aspects of modern business ownership serious attention, lest you’re left in your competition’s dust.
The third most important channel is email marketing; the latest stats from the various blogs and websites we’ve checked say that for every $1 a company spends on email marketing, they get back anywhere from $36 to $40+ in return on investment.
Why we’re telling you this is to underscore the importance of having a strong digital marketing strategy that leverages these three channels appropriately. You want to get your message out there and in front of the right sets of eyes. In the digital age, you have three readily available ways to do that.
But, and this is a big “but”, even with access to such convenient ways of communicating with your customers and potential customers, there’s no guarantee your digital strategy will pay off. There are things you should be doing with your digital marketing and things you shouldn’t. And because it’s more fun to talk about the shouldn’ts, that’s what we’re going to do.
We invite you to give these next five points a good read and take them to heart, lest your digital marketing efforts fall short of their potential to propel your business to the Next Level.
Mistake 1: Ignore the basics
Please do not ignore the basics of digital media in 2023. That means you shouldn’t ignore your business website, you shouldn’t avoid adding new blogs to it every so often, and you really shouldn’t ignore producing blogs that are friendly to Search Engine Optimisation.
The more blogs you produce, the higher search engines will rank your website (they really like websites that are updated regularly with new content). And the more the content of those blogs is optimised with the right keywords, the higher your website will climb in the SEO rankings.
You want your website to rank because that means more people will see it when they’re searching for the type of things your company offers.
Mistake 2: Don’t identify your audience or their “pain points”
A common mistake companies make is to not actively identify who it is they’re trying to reach with their content. When this hasn’t been done, any content created for the company website or social media ends up being sent out into the world without a clear idea of who should be engaging with it. It’s like farting outside in the middle of a thunderstorm and hoping that someone hears it.
Even when you know who it is that you want to reach, if you haven’t also identified the pain points you’re trying to tell them you can address, you might as well not have reached them. A “pain point” is a recurring problem that inconveniences or annoys your audience. It’s also something your products or services can make go away.
What you shouldn’t do is ignore this idea. Instead, you should develop a clear idea of who it is you want to reach (modern digital marketing uses the notion of “personas” for this), and the problems you’re trying to solve for them. From there, you can tailor your messaging to exactly address the issues this specific audience wants to solve.
Mistake 3: Don’t target mobile users
It can be easy to forget about mobile phone users when it comes to your company website, but you really shouldn’t. Approximately half of all web traffic worldwide is from mobile users, so it is in your interest to build a company website optimised for mobile phones. That means the site looks just as good on mobile as it does on desktops and laptops, and that it loads just as quickly.
If this doesn’t make sense to you, just tell your web guy to “optimise the website for mobile” and he will know what to do.
Mistake 4: Don’t use customer testimonials
When it comes to getting the word out about your business, it’s far more effective for potential customers to hear about how awesome you are from existing customers than for them to hear it from you.
It is therefore a cardinal marketing sin not to feature genuine customer testimonials on your website and on your social media. This also overcomes the problem of establishing trust in your business, especially if you’re a startup and new to the scene – customer testimonials constitute what’s known as “social proof” in marketing circles, and it’s essential if you want to grow your business.
But more practically, when dealing with a new, unknown business, people tend to check customer reviews before making a buying decision. So, you shouldn’t ignore this and instead give your customers the opportunity to review your services. It also helps if your products and services are good, of course, so maybe sort that out before letting the public review you.
Mistake 5: Build a digital marketing strategy and then never revisit it
It’s all too easy to come up with what sounds like an amazing marketing strategy, and then leave it to run indefinitely. You shouldn’t do this. Instead, make it a point to check in on how your strategy is doing every few months and make adjustments if it’s not performing to expectations. Do not set and forget, because marketing changes, the internet changes, and people change, and you will need to adjust your marketing strategy regularly to keep up.
Avoiding these is a good start
Of course, there are plenty of other mistakes you could be making, but if you avoid these five you’ll at least be moving in the right direction with your digital marketing.