According to Emarketer.com, in 2010 companies spent twice as much on TV than they did on digital. By the end of 2015, TV and digital spend will be just about equal. This, of course, summons many companies interest to spend their marketing budgets on digital marketing every year by engaging in a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) service, content marketing and advertising or other kinds of Search Engine Marketing strategies. Yet many times they still lack true understanding of what they should expect from their digital marketing efforts or from a digital marketing agency.
Here are some tips to help you avoid what I would consider the 3 biggest mistakes companies make in digital marketing.
Mistake 1: Poor Planning.
The lack of an organized cohesive strategy will lead to wasted time, money and opportunity. It will be better before you invest your dollars toward yours digital marketing efforts, makes sure that you should have the following planned out.
- Understand your marketplace.
It means having a sound understanding of your competitors, geographical boundaries, customer demographics, existing distribution channels, and any information on trends in your markets.
- Perform a SWOT analysis.
Understand your strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats.
- Define your marketing objectives.
It means knowing your goal and the measure of success.
- Have a budget.
If you only have a limited budget, replace your budget in the right strategy. For example, you need direct response for success; you can consider doing Pay per Click advertising instead of social media which is hard to quantify.
Mistake 2 : Not Amplifying Content After You Create It
- Learn which types of content work well on different social networks.
Every person has different style of life. This is where you need to learn. Take time to figure out where your customers hang out and social sharing efforts on those networks. With some researches and experimentations you will find out what content gets a higher rate of interest from different social networks.
- Get influential people to promote and share your content.
Do not be afraid to target bigger fish, since a share from someone highly influential who has a million or more followers benefits you more than a share from someone with 100 followers. So, follow influential people in your industry, share and interact on their blog and in social streams, and share ideas worth promoting.
- Repurpose evergreen content
If you have great content which has been revisited from time to time, you can update the content with new information, statistics, or pictures. Then re-promote it on social media or in marketing emails.
Mistake 3 : Having a self-centered social media strategy.
- Become a content curator.
A content curator is a person who finds great things to be put on a blog. In addition, do not forget that a content curator should maintain social networks and visit great blogs, looking for other content to share.
- Share user generated content.
If your users are satisfied with your content and create other pieces of content about it, such as blog post, a short video, or an image, then share it with your followers. It will give a sense of appreciation and community among your followers. At the same time, it will release your burden of writing a bit as your fans help you to create a content.
Mistake 4: Neglecting Analytics tools
- Look at the numbers on social media
Take a look at how your posts are performing. If you are not using a social media management tool, look at the metrics or parameters provided by each social network. For example on facebook, look at the analytics in admin panel.
- Use the other analytics tools to understand your content’s reach
Review your blog to know which one gets most clicks.
- Look for patterns
The metrics that you see should unveil certain patterns. For example:
- Do you get more engagement when you share content at a certain time of day?
- Do some headlines and some styles of posts get more engagement than others?
- If you word a post in a certain way, such as by wording it as a question, do you get more clicks?
- Do some types of images perform better than others?
- Do some types of content get engagement on certain social networks but flop on others?
- Make changes based on those patterns
Follow the social pattern, if you make more connections at 9 A.M., then it is good to start posting based on the time that hit more connections. Don’t waste your time on content that isn’t engaging the users. Try something new.
Mistake 5: Relying on a one size fits all marketing experience
- Understand your typical customer
This includes both demographics (age, gender, ethnicity, income levels, hobbies) and psychographics (why they use your products or the feelings associated with using your products).
- Start segmenting
Ask yourself how differences of your customer impact on how you market to different customers.
- Create multiple marketing strategies
Try to start from something simple. For example, you should differentiate how you market new potential customers from how you market to your existing customers.
In conclusion, digital marketing will continue to grow and develop, so it is better to keep studying it by learning from other people’s mistakes. This will avoid us from repeating the same mistakes which make us look more expert.