The world of internet is full of articles, blogs and forums that talk about the importance of digital marketing for modern businesses. The more you emphasize on this aspect the less it is. It needs to be understood that modern digital marketing is really changing lives of people and shapes of businesses. It should also be stated here that it takes proper digital marketing strategies for a business to really make something from it. There are many ways for businesses to connect with their worldwide audience today and SEO, email marketing, banner marketing, affiliate marketing, SEM, PPC, etc. are examples of those methods.
However, there are businesses that have understood the essence of digital marketing and there are other businesses that have made huge mistakes. You could literally read many stories on the internet about businesses that completely destroyed their reputation and image with their bad internet marketing strategies. So, while it is important for business owners to know the dos of internet marketing, they must also gain knowledge about the don’ts of it. Here are some of the biggest mistakes that companies make in their marketing strategies while using various digital marketing channels:
Bad SEO
Yes, there is literally a thing called bad SEO. While black hat SEO is a more common term used for it, there are some things that don’t count as black hat SEO but are still bad. For example, it is not black hat SEO if you link your website to many other websites on the internet for a large number of backlinks. However, it is definitely going to hurt your ranking on Google if most of those links are coming from websites that don’t have a good PageRank for Google. Any links coming from shady websites will go more against you than in your favor.
Early Expectations from a Blog
Companies would decide on having a blog after hearing the great things about blogs and reading the online statistics about their success rates. However, they would soon stop giving any attention to their blogs when they don’t see a response from people within the first few months. Ask any blogger and they would tell you that blogging bears any fruit at least after a year. You have to consistently and frequently keep updating your blog with interesting content for more than a year to get a response from the people. Once you have started getting a response, there is not stopping you.
Completely Ignoring Local SEO
The latest steps that Google has taken in the direction of local SEO, you would be making a huge mistake if you don’t include local SEO in your marketing expenses. Local SEO targets your local audience and that’s the most potential group of people for you on the internet. Depending on the type of business you have, you could really make a huge difference in your monthly income and revenue with a proper local SEO approach. Get listed on Google Places as soon as possible.
Missing The Essence of Social Media
Social media is the place where you have to be in to be recognized by the worldwide audience. However, some businesses have not truly understood the essence of social media and so their marketing strategies are not fruitful. When you post something on social media you have to keep in mind the interests of the people. You have to know how to mold your marketing into a strategy that aligns with what people want. You don’t have to give people what you have. You have to give people what they want on social media to get any recognition.
Not Using Email Marketing Properly
Email marketing is not about building a database and sending annoying emails to your customers frequently. First, use the proper software designed for effective email marketing. Such a software will divide your customers in different categories so you can send emails that concern only particular customers and not all. Furthermore, you should be able to choose from various professional templates to send an appealing email. Your software should also be able to tell you how many of your emails were read and how many went right into the trash so you know what steps you should take afterwards.
Completely Forgetting About User Experience
If you think your website is ready to be published because you like it, you are going the wrong way. How much does it matter how much you like your website? It does not matter much but it definitely matters the most how much your visitors like your website. It is an important thing for website owners to focus on the user experience of their website and create a website that makes users stay on their websites for long. This is done by creating a clean, professional, easily loading, user-friendly and intuitive website.
Doing Boring Marketing
You are telling people that you have these many products on your website but you are forgetting that there are many other websites that might have more products on them than you have on yours. How you make your offers more interesting is by offering discounts, promotions and spreading the news about your discounts on the internet. This could be best understood from websites allowing people to invest in penny stocks. Some interesting details in this regard can be found here. These websites are there to allow people to trade in stock markets but have some of the most mouth-watering and attractive discount and bonus offers for their potential customers.
Doing Blind Internet Marketing
Yes, companies have been doing that in the past but with not-so-great technology that had an excuse to do the blind marketing. The amount of data companies have today and the high-tech technology of the modern times leave no excuse for such marketing. Online social networking platforms like Facebook and the search engine giant Google are now allowing businesses to do targeted marketing i.e. companies will be able to send marketing messages to customers that have in the past looked for stuff that the company is selling. This type of marketing literally has a huge advantage over blind marketing.
