10 Things You Should Never Do In Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is an essential piece of the online landscape, and everyone and their dog is doing it.

That said, it’s not always a straight and narrow path. In fact, even the most experienced digital marketing experts out there make occasional marketing mistakes. So what’s that say about marketing newbies?

If you’re just getting your feet wet in the pool of digital marketing, it’s likely you have lots of questions about how it works, and what you should avoid.

With that in mind, here’s my breakdown of the top 10 mistakes to avoid in digital marketing.

1. Not Setting Campaign Goals

If you’re not managing it, you can’t measure it. This is as true for your campaign goals as it is anything else.

As you establish your digital marketing campaign, it’s essential to define measurable goals to go along with it.

This may include form completion, sign-ups, calls or whatever else you choose to measure your campaign by.

Related Article: What is Digital Marketing? Your Complete Roadmap

2. Not Targeting a Specific Audience

Do you know who you’re targeting with your campaigns? If not, now is the time to start.

Since there are so many people on the web, understanding who you’re talking to is absolutely essential. The more accurately you define that audience, the more productive and lucrative your campaigns will be.

For best results, define your audiences based on more than their demographics. Go deeper to define their habits, favored platforms and relevant life events.

3. Forgetting About Mobile Platforms

Right now, about 77 percent of U.S. adults own a smartphone, and about 51 percent use their phones to make online purchases. Taking these stats into account, it’s clear that you can’t afford to overlook the value of the mobile platform.

Instead, develop a honed mobile marketing strategy that takes your website, social media and downloadable content into account.

4. Not Focusing Enough on Your Customers

If you’re not developing and adopting a customer-centric mindset, it’s time to begin. Digital marketing must be all about the customer. This means that personalization, targeting, data analysis and journey mapping should all be at the top of your priority list.

5. Forgetting Email Marketing

With all the flashy new types of digital marketing out there (social media, mobile, content, etc.), it’s easy to forget about email marketing.

As it turns out, email marketing is one of the most essential channels available. Right now, marketers make about $4 for every $1 they spend on email marketing. Email is ranked as the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences.

With this in mind, it’s essential to build a subscriber list and leverage it to send out high-quality marketing emails on a regular basis.

6. Buying Social Followers

If you’re new to social media, it might seem like buying followers is one of the best things you can do to build up your base. Unfortunately, this approach is likely to backfire.

As social media has gotten more advanced, platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have gotten better at detecting fake profiles and deleting them — meaning those 4,000 followers you paid a pretty penny for could vanish overnight.

Related Article: How To Build a Social Following

7. Not Measuring Your Results

If you’re not measuring your digital marketing results, you’re missing out on a large area for improvement. That’s why you should use tools like Google Analytics to collect data and compile it into easily analyzable bodies of information.

This helps you understand where your strategy is working and where your approach could use some improvement.

8. Being Too Trend-Driven

Social media and the digital landscape are both riddled with mouthwatering trends.

Unfortunately, being too quick to jump on these could be a disaster for your brand. While it may be that some trends are relevant for your company, most won’t be relevant. In fact, investing too heavily in them can derail your marketing program as well as cost you funds and resources.

Be slow to move on new trends. By analyzing them carefully beforehand, you can make smart decisions about which ones you want to participate in or not.

9. Not Developing Your Brand Voice

In the world of digital marketing, your voice should be consistent across all platforms. As an example, if it’s funny and irreverent on social media, but professional and buttoned-up on your website. This then means that your customers are going to get confused.

Develop your brand voice before you launch your marketing campaign. This will help ensure consistency and positive results.

10. Seeing It as a Short-Term Approach

For better or worse, digital marketing is a long-game approach. Expecting it to deliver results overnight is a surefire way to wind up disappointed or to throw the towel in prematurely on tactics that could produce a great ROI with more time. However, when you understand the long-game approach of digital marketing, you can make smart decisions to create the results you crave.

Better Digital Marketing Starts Here

If you’re just getting started with digital marketing, you’re bound to make mistakes. And that’s okay! Trust me — I made my fair share as well. Luckily, you can avoid some of the potholes and create a more lucrative digital marketing empire by employing these smart tips.

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