Outdated Digital Marketing Practices That Could Cost You Your Reputation
Fashion and digital marketing might sound like two complete opposites, but they do have one thing in common: trends come and go every year and holding on to them for too long can do more harm than good. In the same way that the most coveted color palette becomes plain and questionable after a couple of years, certain digital marketing practices that everyone used in the past are now ticking bombs for marketers who refuse to evolve. Sometimes, it’s because they’re no longer efficient compared to the latest methods. Other times, because they have been flagged as black hat and using them could cost you your reputation. Here are a few examples of digital practices that are no longer relevant in 2018 and that you should give up:
Trying to go viral
There’s nothing wrong with using corporate videos to market your business and advertise new products, but if you’re only posting these videos in an attempt to “go viral,” then don’t expect long-term business growth. According to a Socialbakers study, most viral videos plummet rapidly after reaching the maximum number of views and their creators slowly drift away into anonymity. From a business standpoint, a steady flux of viewers is preferable to a sudden surge, so don’t put your corporate videos in the same category as puppy videos, fail compilations and YouTube challenges. Instead, go for quality, timeless relevance and viewer engagement.
Automated social media replies
Technology is more present than ever before in social media and digital marketing as a whole, especially given the advent of AI, but it’s very important how you use technology. The way you interact with your followers still relies heavily on the human factor and every interaction should feel meaningful. Do not use auto-generated replies to get back to your customers, because it’s an extremely risky practice. First, they do not like it and you will face a backlash in the comments from everyone. Customers don’t want to feel like their message isn’t important enough for an actual human to read it and they will point you out for it. Second, there’s a very high chance for the automated reply to be irrelevant for what the customer posted.
Keyword-stuffed blog posts and landing pages
No list of outdated anything’s could be complete without an SEO trend that was once big overused until it became black hat. Now, keyword stuffing is so advised against that marketing experts tell companies to print name cards, hand out flyers and invest in traditional media instead of using this risky practice. Google’s algorithms are more sophisticated than ever and creating blog posts and landing pages just for the sake of SEO will cost you a penalty sooner than you expect it. Every piece of promotional content you write has to be natural, user-friendly and relevant. Strive for quality in anything you post and don’t focus so much on keywords, because you are writing for your clients, not for a machine. SEO is not dead and it has elegant, effective practices that could boost your rankings, but keyword stuffing is not it.
Generic newsletters
Email marketing is still big, but not if you send your clients automated, impersonal newsletters. No one likes to read irrelevant emails, so either they will be deleted immediately, or they will go straight to spam. In 2018, there are so many easy and affordable ways to send targeted emails by age, gender and buying habits, that it’s a shame not to take advantage of them and get stuck in the old ways. Customized email marketing has higher customer engagement rates and those newsletters actually have a chance to convert to a sale.
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