By now, every business owner should be aware of how essential digital marketing is to business growth. It’s one of the simplest marketing tools and happens to be available to everyone. Still, many business owners fail to use these tools to their greatest potential and, as such, do not receive all the benefits they stand to offer.
The key to becoming a successful digital marketer is understanding how to avoid digital marketing mistakes. Knowing some common mistakes to avoid can ensure your marketing efforts put you on the right track for a successful business.
1. Not hosting webinars
Webinars have recently become one of the most widely used marketing channels by successful companies, especially since the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Webinar Software has been on the rise, and statistics show that an estimated 19% of webinar attendees are likely to purchase a product after attending a 60-minute webinar.
Webinars are a great way to keep a global audience engaged in ways that streaming videos simply can’t. The ability for your audience to participate and ask questions with real-time feedback adds a lot of value. Moreover, the audience can help you determine what kind of content they prefer.
Webinars may also position you as an expert in your field and provide your business with added credibility, especially if you invite industry affiliates as guests. This will allow you to generate more leads without needing to sell your product or service too hard.
You have the option of making webinars accessible for free, which can provide a lot of value, or if you choose, you can charge a small fee, which can generate considerable revenue. The webinars can be either live events or recurring automated webinars. Live webinars are better for engaging with the audience, but auto webinars require less time investment on your side.
2. Not hiring a consultant or mentor
Hiring an experienced business consultant or mentor can provide your company with valuable insights and knowledge that can aid your decision-making process.
A consultant can help steer you in the right direction by following a structured approach based on their skills and knowledge about your industry. They typically come on board to help your business realize short-term or long-term goals.
Comparatively, GrowthMentors or coaches provide you with technical and professional advice based on their personal experiences within the industry. A mentorship can be an ongoing and mutually beneficial relationship as the needs of both the mentor and the mentee can change over time.
Marketing consultants and mentors can help you achieve reachable goals within your business and show you where your company may be falling short. It’s a valuable relationship that can make a great deal of difference in your reach.
3. Not automating social media
Automating social media posts will not only make it easier to manage a business with multiple accounts but will also ensure that a level of consistency is present in your content. It also gives you greater control over the content you share, saving a lot of time in the process. Pretty much like a “set it and forget it” situation.
Scheduling apps like Recurpost allow you to automatically share your updates at the optimal time while increasing your social media engagement. It’s critical to post your content at a time when your particular audience is more likely to see and engage with it. Automation can help determine these analytics.
4. Not including a blog
It’s surprising to see how many digital marketers still fail to see the value in including a blog on their websites. Having a blog may seem trivial or unnecessary, but the reality is that it’s a simple tool that offers big benefits.
For starters, blogs help drive traffic to your website. Think about it, aside from using search engines to find specific services, people use them to find answers to their questions. These answers are more often than not found in a blog post. Your current traffic comes from the audience you already have, but increased traffic will come from people looking for answers.
Having more indexed pages on your site also increases the chances of your site showing up on the SERP (search engine results page). Blogs also create an opportunity for backlinking from other websites, allowing you to build more domain authority. You can even repurpose your blog content on your social media platforms.
5. Trying to target everyone
One of the biggest mistakes that digital marketers make is attempting to target everyone, which often results in targeting no one. Identifying your target audience should really be the first step of any marketing plan.
In knowing your target audience, you can get a better sense of what their needs are and customize your product or service to these needs. Focusing in on the specifics of your target audience will help you better distinguish what makes your product stand out and gain a competitive advantage.
This will significantly boost your sales and increase your revenue as you promote within the market that’s more likely to become consumers.
6. Not measuring your ROI
Your ROI (return on investment) is one of the most important metrics for any marketing campaign, yet it’s something marketers rarely measure. Measuring your ROI allows you to determine whether or not your marketing strategies were effective.
It’s vital to ensure that your marketing campaigns are actually helping your business reach its conversion goals and generate leads. Once you’ve been regularly assessing your ROI, you can modify your strategies as you see fit.
Measuring your ROI involves taking your conversion goal through metrics such as click-through rates, sales, or traffic and determining how much you’ve earned on the total investment. If your return is not as great as you’d hoped, it may be time to rethink that particular strategy.
Final Thoughts
In order to avoid digital marketing mistakes, pay attention to the areas of which you might be neglecting. The world of digital marketing offers a range of opportunities. Having a successful business means taking advantage of all of them.
About the Author
Erkki Muuga is the creator of WebinarSoftware.org, a blog dedicated to helping marketers, coaches and start-ups leverage webinars to grow their businesses. Having over 5 years of experience in building software either as a founder or a product manager enables him to give deep and thoughtful insight in his blog.
