9 Digital Marketing Mistakes Your Brand Should Avoid

While Digital Marketing is moving with a pace of fire in the forest, its tools are also changing frantically and so are the mistakes, usually made by businesses when doing Digital Marketing. There are a lot of misconceptions about the concept of marketing online and getting instant result. It is not like that. Neither you have instant results, nor your business ranks number 1 overnight. Digital marketing, no doubt does wonder for your business growth. But that is only if you avoid these common Digital Marketing mistakes, which most of the businesses are unknowingly doing it.

No need to worry, we have come up with a list of 10 common digital marketing mistakes that your brand should avoid. When you are strategizing about what all should be included in your digital marketing for your company, there are a lot of things to keep in mind. Starting from SEO, SMO, to Social media, Google ads etc, everything has to be kept in mind. Missing out on any single component may cost you heavily. Here are 10 Digital Marketing Mistakes your brand should avoid.

Digital Marketing Mistakes

1. Not Planning – The proverb “failure to plan is planning to fail” is cent per cent correct when it comes to digital marketing. This is the first and foremost the most important point to be kept in mind. If you do not plan strategically in advance, for sure, your online marketing is going to fail.  You need to have set goals to achieve, work with your in-house staff and outside agencies to create calendars, deadlines, and consistently innovate fresh ideas that can be executed. Not having set any goals means you will not be able to measure your success or identify areas where your campaigns fail.
2. Missing Out On Analytics – When it comes to digital marketing, you absolutely cannot make the mistaking of loosing out on your analytics. Running a campaign does not complete the work. In fact, the actual work begins after you run the campaign when it comes you calculating and analyzing. You need to constantly keep an eye on the insights of your campaign. Check your visitors’ metrics, do a competitive analysis of your website, with the website of your competitors.
3. Not Targeting The Right Audience – If you are doing the rights calculations and paying attention to your insights and analytics, you know quite a lot about your audience. You know who they are, which region they are from, what are their likes, etc. If you have all this information you should be targeting exactly to the audience who might be your potential customers. You will need to take some extra efforts if you want results. You will have to reach out to people [who] have visited your site and/or joined your email list. Take your social targeting beyond age, gender, education and topic interest by layering on purchase intent and relevant life events.”
4. Discounts/Promotions Overload & Lack of Self Promotion – Discounts and promotions are good, but too much of everything is always dangerous. Concentrating only on offering discounts and promotions and not concentrating on your brand or not doing self-promotion can drive away your visitors and customers. These discounts may pep up your sales for some time, but may not be beneficial for the long run. Discounts can impact brand value negatively by putting the focus on rates rather than value for money. It further weakens and devalues your brand and sets a bad precedent.
5. Focusing on Leads and Forgetting About Customer – Generating leads is probably the most important part of your business. If you do not get future customers how will you increase your sales? But that does not mean you ignore your current customers. It is equally important to pay attention to them. If you only concentrate on gaining more customers, not bothering to attend to your current customers may result in double harm. One not being able to generate consistent lead and losing an existing customer as well. Your customers are your assets, don’t take them for granted.
6. No Website, Blog or Social Media Presence – According to the research, 97% of the people research products and services online. Therefore having a virtual online presence is compulsory. So if you have a business and do not have an online presence you rather not even think of succeeding. Having a website, social media presence and posting blogs and videos will make you visible online. Then there are several other things like SEO, SMO, Google AdWords etc that you need to take care of, to make sure that your site ranks top on all search engines. Close to 78 per cent of local mobile searches results in purchases within 24 hours. Going digital is the best thing for your business.
7. Ignoring Network, Referral or Affiliate Marketing – Failure to a network can be another big marketing mistake. Affiliate marketing can be of advantage for partners, who get a commission for promoting your product or services, plus it is beneficial for you as well. Refusing to tap the power of referral marketing is equally short-sighted. Consider, that while affiliating or making referrals for already top companies in the market may increase the chances of your visibility also. Therefore, growing your network and practising affiliate and referral marketing is another step you need to take if you have been avoiding it until now.
   
8. Ignoring Customer Feedback – Customers are everything for you and their feedback is like a gospel that you need to follow and respond to immediately. If you think that ignoring or deleting negative feedback of your customers is the right thing you are doing, then you are absolutely wrong. Ignoring one negative feedback may result in getting 10 more of them. Instead, you should take this as an opportunity to attend to the customer’s feedback immediately and resolve the issue. This will not only build the customer’s trust in your brand but also improve your relations with them.
9. Underestimating The Relevance Of Mobile – According to the research, 65% of the total digital media consumption is through mobile. So you need to understand that paying attention to mobile traffic is also equally important. The usage of smartphones, supported with the fast Internet is growing at a lightning speed. Irrespective of your preferred channel, mobile must reflect strongly in your short-term and long-term marketing strategy. You cannot afford to ignore the relevance of mobile traffic.
10. Failing to test – When it comes to digital marketing, testing all your campaigns is extremely essential. If you think that just setting your goal and forgetting about it is ok with your with your marketing plan. You are definitely making a mistake here. If your strategies are not working then directly leaping to conclusions without finding out the result is wrong. You need to analyze the reason and for that testing, your campaign in advance is the best option.

Naturally, it is not possible to ensure your brand’s success through digital marketing, without making any mistakes. Making mistakes is ok because they help you learn from it. But if you know in advance, what mistakes should be avoided, it will be a boost for your business.