Digital marketing is an exciting field, but it’s also one that’s constantly evolving. As a result, it can be easy to make mistakes if you don’t keep up with the latest developments. In this article, we’ll take a look at some common errors made by digital marketers and how we can avoid them ourselves.
1. Focusing on quantity over quality
In the digital marketing space, it can be easy to get caught up in the numbers game. We want to see our sites and social media profiles grow as quickly and as big as possible. The problem is that this type of focus on quantity over quality often leads to frustration when we realize that these gains are not translating into paying customers or higher rankings in search engines.
To give you an example: Say you write 10 blog posts per month and they all have an average time on page (TOS) of 5 seconds each. You now have 50,000 TOS per month across all your content—but only because people are clicking through quickly or not reading it at all! Instead, if you spent more time each week writing one blog post with a better title and more thorough content that was actually helpful to the reader, your TOS might increase from 5 seconds per article to 10 minutes per article—and with a 100% engagement rate (100% = 0% bounce rate).That would mean 1,000 times more value being offered than before — which means 100 times more likely for someone who sees your posts in Google results later on down the road. Quality over quantity will always win out when it comes down to making good decisions about how best to spend resources like time, money, effort, etc.
2. Relying on intuition alone
Intuition is one of the most important parts of the creative process, and it’s something we rely on every day. But intuition alone isn’t enough when it comes to digital marketing. You need data and analysis to inform your decisions—not just for yourself, but also for your team and clients.
And this isn’t just about being able to explain what you did; it’s also about being able to explain why you did it—and how that decision will benefit your business or client in the long run. You should be able to show how making a certain choice led to an increase in conversions or subscriptions (if applicable), which will make things smoother when explaining those decisions down the road.
3. Not adapting to the market
The market is changing constantly, and the key to adapting to that change is staying up-to-date on what’s going on in your industry. The best way to do this is through research.
It’s easy to fall behind the times if you don’t stay on top of what’s happening in marketing, which means you could be missing out on opportunities or missing out on knowing how much money you’re losing by not being up-to-date with digital marketing trends and strategies.
4. Trying to be everything to everyone
You can’t be everything to everyone, and that’s okay. Trying to do so is one of the biggest mistakes we make in digital marketing because it leads us down a path toward overextending ourselves and spreading ourselves too thin.
If you’re not sure where to begin when it comes to focusing on your audience, products, services, or messaging (all things we’ve talked about here), start by asking yourself these questions:
Who are my core customers? What do they want from me? How can I better serve their needs?
What products or services are most important for my business right now? Which ones should take priority over others at this time? Why am I focusing on these particular items first? What makes them so special compared to everything else on my plate right now (and why should potential customers care)?
What’s my message—what am I trying hard enough against all odds to not just say but also embody in every aspect of our company culture as well as through our words and actions—that keeps people coming back again and again even though there are other options available elsewhere online today that may seem similar enough at first glance yet ultimately fall short due to poor execution across multiple fronts simultaneously (ease-of-use for user experience considerations).
5. Tackling everything at once
The first and most important mistake is tackling everything at once. The key to success in digital marketing is focusing on one thing at a time, and starting with the most important thing. If you’re going to be successful in digital marketing, you have to set aside time for strategy, research, and planning—and then follow through with an aggressive plan of action that involves content creation and social media promotion.
6. Forgetting about the user experience.
In our rush to get a digital marketing campaign off the ground, we often forget about one of its most important aspects: user experience.
When users visit your website or app, they’re looking for something—and if you haven’t thought about what that is, or how to provide it, they’re going to leave and never come back. User experience (UX) can make or break your business in digital marketing. And while some people will think of UX only in terms of websites and apps, it’s actually a concept that applies across all types of businesses—not just those with web presences.
So what does a great UX look like? A good example is Amazon Prime Video: when you open up the app on your phone or tablet computer, there are several options for various TV shows and movies directly onscreen without any extra clicks required. You can see which episodes are available and start watching without having any other distractions around you first; this makes for an efficient user experience where there aren’t any unnecessary steps between choosing what type of content someone wants versus actually getting into that content itself-which creates more time spent watching rather than figuring things out!
7. Ignoring the power of content and SEO
In this digital age, content is king. The more traffic you can get to your site through organic search, the better. It’s not just about keyword stuffing; it’s about creating a site that is easy for people to navigate, read, and share with others.
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” Search engines like Google use algorithms to determine which websites appear in their search results when someone searches for something specific (like “hotels in San Diego”). You want your website to be high up on those lists because they’ll drive tons of traffic to your page—and if they’re on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, they’ll also drive traffic back to the original article!
8. Taking a “what can you do for me?” approach
As a digital marketer, you have access to a wide range of tools and tactics that can help your clients achieve their goals. However, the most effective way to use those tools is not always clear. You need to shift your perspective from “What can you do for me?” to “How can I help my client achieve their goals?”
To do this, you need to focus on the client’s needs and interests above all else. It’s important that they feel like they’re getting more than just a product—they should feel as though they’re getting something valuable that suits their situation well.
9. There are ways to not make digital marketing mistakes.
There are ways to make digital marketing mistakes. That’s what this article is about—how to avoid the mistakes that plague your business and how you can learn from others’ mistakes.
There are numerous ways in which people can make marketing errors, but there are two main categories of these errors: those that are preventable (i.e., they can be avoided with proper planning), and those that have an element of chance involved (i.e., there’s nothing you could have done differently).
If you’re trying something new or experimenting with an untested strategy or tactic, it’s important that you have a plan in place for dealing with potential failures. You should also consider how much time and effort is required to implement a plan if things go awry; if it’ll take 20 hours to execute a certain project, then it might not be worth doing if only a 5% chance exists that it’ll work out as planned.
Conclusion
The above list of mistakes is by no means exhaustive. There are, of course, many others—and the really important thing to remember is that this is not a matter of simply avoiding all possible errors. A mistake in digital marketing can cost you dearly. Whether it’s lost revenue or brand value (or both), you should always strive for excellence and be willing to work hard to achieve it.