10 Common Digital Marketing Mistakes And How To Fix Them

Albert Einstein once said, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” 

What’s funny is that even though Einstein quoted this more than a century ago, it is still accurate and will always be. While times have changed, the endeavor to achieve something new is what drives humanity to greatness.

Marketing in the digital era

One of the most assuring industries today is the marketing sector. In an era where every task we do today is through digital media, one cannot ignore the possibilities of this ever booming digital market. Now, as mentioned before, endeavor and mistakes are the two sides of the same coin. Due to the enormous rise of this industry, there is also fierce competition among the companies.

To stand ahead, brands try new strategies, and as a part of the process, make “digital marketing mistakes,” which eventually become the stepping stone for their victory.

Learning from other’s digital marketing mistakes

The bright side about having so many competitors is that you also witness and observe different digital marketing strategies. Based on your observation, you can find out which one might suit you. In this article, we will address some common digital marketing mistakes that brands make and how you can fix them.

Here are the top 10 common marketing mistakes

Missing your Target Market

Imagine having a shop where you get daily visitors but don’t witness sales. Sounds weird, right? The significant issue here is being unable to attract the right consumer or the target market. 

Similarly, suppose your metrics inform you about the growing viewers on your page. In that case, it is vital to analyze whether these visitors are actually your target audience or just random visitors. Another critical question to ask yourself is, “Who are you targeting?” For companies who try to capture “everyone,” that’s a big blunder! 

Narrow down your target consumer and be clear about your goals. Remember, the quantity will follow if you have the quality. Therefore, start with specific targets.

Hence, you need to ensure that your ads are being shown in the right place to target the relevant users. Missing on this can cause heavy loss to your firm.

Ignoring the Mobile Users

Did you know, since the rise of smartphones, the application of desktops and laptops has diminished considerably? According to Statista, more than 4 billion people use mobile globally. The majority of the world population prefers browsing on smartphones rather than desktops. 

Hence, if your website is not mobile-friendly, you’re missing out on nearly 50% of the potential online consumers. While it is true that every business can’t launch an app, but you could ensure that your website is mobile-friendly to woo mobile users.

Setting Unrealistic Goals

This is one of the most basic mistakes that a lot of us are guilty of. But let’s talk about it specifically in digital marketing strategy. Many upcoming and new brands set imaginary goals for themselves. They overestimate their reach and digital marketing efficacy. 

The issue here is not the efficiency of digital marketing. Still, you cannot expect a business to convert all your visitors into customers, can you? Or is it possible to expect a start-up to target more than 500,000 consumers? 

Ultimately, what this does is daunts the brand when it is unable to fetch such targets. Hence, setting unrealistic goals for yourself is one of the major digital marketing mistakes to avoid.

Instead, you can set goals based on durations like long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals and invest your resources and time accordingly to achieve them. Another vital thing to do is, learn from the past trends to get an idea of how the market functions. It will enlighten you with what to expect and how to approach your goals.

Using Clickbait

Do you know the reason why some brands are thriving while others are struggling? It’s a very basic yet fundamental ingredient that becomes the deciding factor. It’s the trust between the consumer and the brand. If you can make your consumers trust you, half of your work is done. 

But what’s the fastest way to ruin this assurance? “Clickbait.” For those who are unaware, click baits are those cunning spinoff of words that seem very appealing but actually hold no value. These are also called attention-grabbing tactics in the field of digital marketing strategy. Still, they can also ruin your brand image. 

Hence, it is advisable to be truthful to your visitors. Let them know what they are in for without implementing shenanigans like click baits. As clichè as it may sound, “Honesty is the best policy.”

Neglecting SEO 

Blogging can increase your website reach by nearly 97%. Moreover, every day, more than 5 million blogs are published. Henceforth, to move ahead of the race, you cannot ignore SEO.

While SEO is constantly upgrading itself, you will also need to update yourself accordingly. But these are few areas that you can also work on to enhance your SEO rating and boost the traffic on your website. 

• Keyword: We discussed how important it is to target the right consumer. The keyword you use can have a massive impact on your quest to targeting suitable users. Focusing and implementing the right keyword will grow your SEO ranking. 
• Enrich your content: Search engines love high-quality content. Adding optimized multimedia along with a well-researched blog can boost your ranking considerably. 
• Mobile-friendly – Yes, mentioning it again. That’s how important it is. Owning a website that is optimized for mobile can give you a competitive edge. 
• URLs – Crisp and short URL but must contain the primary keyword. That’s all you need for a good SEO ranking.

Only Spending on Paid Advertisements

There is a big misconception around advertisements. Undoubtedly, it is one of the oldest forms of marketing strategy. But spending all your resources on only paid advertisements will make you lose your money. Consequently, you will also miss out on other valuable resources you could invest in instead. 

Moreover, did you know 75-80% of users ignore paid ads? Hence, it is advisable to focus on growing your consumer base organically. 

Ignoring Social Media

One of the common marketing mistakes is neglecting social media. According to Brandwatch, there are more than 3.725 billion active social media users. By simple math, that is half of the world. 

Hence ignoring social media for digital marketing is a grave mistake that takes away your brand’s potential for a global reach through social media. 

Not Investing in The Right Resources

As explained above on how digital marketers spend all their resources on paid advertising. This mistake is followed by another where they try to allocate a team’s work to a select few due to lack of funds. Not only is this unfair to the individuals, but this also severely affects the quality of the work. Consequently, this leads to inadequate digital marketing campaigns, which leads to no or few lead generations. 

Therefore, to have effective digital marketing campaigns, it is essential to invest in the right tools and hire professionals who know the field and think strategically.

Working with Outdated skills 

It’s not just the SEO that keeps upgrading itself. The digital marketing sector is equally rapid, if not more. Hence, any digital marketer needs to educate themselves and their team. 

How? You can either search for free materials online or take up courses. Educating yourself will probably be one of the best investments, giving you the best ROI in the future. 

Not doing so will not only lead to waste your resources on outdated skills but will also hinder your likely growth. 

Not Focusing On ROI

In the last section, as mentioned ROI or Return on Investment. This brings us to the ultimate error in the list of digital marketing mistakes to avoid. Notably, a strategy is as good as a result it produces. Hence, you must monitor your digital marketing strategy. You need to check how much you’re spending on your digital campaigns and what type of returns you are getting.

Based on your review, you can continue the tactics that work and alter those that don’t. 

But not monitoring at all would not only cause a hole in your pocket. Furthermore, you will be repeating the same mistake again and again. In the long run, this could prove fatal for your business. Consequently, focusing on your ROI is a must to sustain and grow your brand. 

Conclusion

That closes the list of the top 10 common digital marketing mistakes and how you can avoid or fix them. Practically, you can’t afford to make all mistakes due to such heavy competition. Therefore, the smarter approach is to learn from others’ errors to pave the way for yourself. 

So ask yourself, consciously or unconsciously, are you making any of the above common marketing mistakes? And don’t worry, even if you’re, now, you know how to fix them.