5 Inevitable Digital Marketing Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)

When it comes to branching out your business online, the pitfalls of digital marketing can feel like a risk not worth taking. For the most part, it pays to accept that for every road to success, there’ll always be a few hiccups along the way. Even better, there are those who have been there before and can now impart on you the tricks and tips needed to get out of the sticky situations you might encounter!

So here are some common digital marketing mistakes, and how you can avoid them:

Starting out with unrealistic expectations.

For many new to the world of digital marketing, the opportunities seem endless and the results close enough to touch. Whilst the opportunities are vast, it takes time before you can reap the rewards of your strategy or campaign.

So how do you avoid it?

Set realistic goals and milestones, and make sure you keep track of them as and when they happen. That way, if a particular goal seems further off than you expected, you can make the adjustments necessary to improve performance. If your one and only goal is, ‘to become the best ______ business on the web’, you’re going to be waiting a long time before you get to celebrate. Start small, then work your way up!

Forgetting to focus on offline marketing alongside the online strategy.

Before you got to the digital side of things, you had traditional marketing methods to get the word out there. Now that you’re online, it’s not a cue to drop what you already know in favour of new information.

So how do you avoid it?

Create a campaign with both online and offline elements in mind. If you’re advertising a sale on your website, make sure you advertise it in store too, with flyers, posters, and window stickers. Cater to all facets of the strategy, because if you neglect one in favour of another, your campaign might not hit as hard as you want it to.

Using the wrong social media, or too much social media.

For most businesses venturing into the digital world, it can feel like an informational overload. You’re told that not only should you have a Facebook, but also a Twitter account. Then a Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr blog, Instagram… That’s a lot of places to spread focus, especially if you have to learn the ins-and-outs of using them as well.

Whilst you might want to consider having all of those in the near future, you don’t need to dive into it all right away.

So how do you avoid it?

Really think about which social media site will benefit your business the best and where your customers hang out online. If what you’re selling can be nicely photographed and displayed with images, an Instagram or Pinterest is the way to start. To build your community and share all manners of media, Twitter and Facebook might suit you better. In the name of content-creation and networking, you shouldn’t overlook the benefits of a Tumblr page or LinkedIn account.

To throw yourself into all of them at once is to get swamped under the demands of their maintenance. Remember, regular, well-written content is key, which brings us onto our next point…

Not investing time or the budget for content.

A good way to establish a trusted and up-to-date brand is to invest the time and the money in good quality content. It’s got to be more than just one half-hearted blog post a month or a few generic tweets throughout the day. Unfortunately, many businesses overlook the importance of content, and find themselves fading into obscurity over time.

So how do you avoid it?

Set yourself a workable schedule. Even if you don’t have the time to post content frequently at first, as long as you set a date to it (for example, the first Tuesday of every month) you’ll soon get used to the routine of it. Think about the kind of things you want on your site, whether that’s blog posts, images or video, and really commit to making a unique, home-grown product.

Although you won’t get every piece of content to go viral, the more you keep persevering and creating things that are unique and shareable, the more chance you’ll have at improving your site traffic and customer engagement.

Owning a website that isn’t responsive.

It’s one thing to own a website, but another to make sure it adapts well to all manners of devices. With more people using tablets and mobile phones to shop online, it has never been more important for businesses to invest in a responsive site.

So how do you avoid it?

Make sure your website doesn’t display any errors or problems with the page layout when viewed away from the desktop. If the user has to zoom in on tiny blocks of text, or scroll for days to find what they’re looking for, they’ll almost always bounce back to their search query and go elsewhere. In most all cases, the customer will make a mental note not to return to your site again because of their poor experience.

Remember, Digital Marketing will take your business forward and aid in its growth. Whilst mistakes at the beginning of any new learning experience are inevitable, how you adapt and respond to them can make or break your business’ online career. Good preparation and thorough research all helps towards a smooth transition into the World Wide Web.

So to get started, take a look at Achieve Digital’s training opportunities, and get one step closer to your business taking-off online.