If you spend any time online, you have seen and experienced the power of online marketing. By leveraging the internet, many brands have grown from obscurity to prominence. Although many companies have succeeded, many have also failed. This is why your digital marketing is failing!
Failure to Evolve
Do you remember when the internet was new? Back then, many businesses argued about getting a website. They felt their traditional marketing channels were good enough. After all, if a strategy works, why change it? Many of those firms were late adopters, and some failed to embrace the online world in time to stay relevant.
Since then, technology continues evolving. If you don’t evolve with it, you could set up yourself for failure. Sure, you may have a website, but that’s not enough for the modern business world. Even social media marketing has matured and has become an essential part of every digital marketing plan. Guard against failure by embracing the latest digital marketing tactics and tools.
Rookie Mistakes
In practically every field, getting experience is more important than gaining additional knowledge. This principle also holds true in digital marketing. Regardless of whether you want to create digital strategies for your firm or others, nothing beats experience. So, until you get some experience, you may feel as though digital marketing is wasting your time.
If you own your business, you might not think you have the time or money needed to get the practice you need. If you work as an employee, your boss may want the benefits of digital marketing without spending the necessary time and money. Rather than giving up, get some incremental experience by taking small freelance jobs. This will introduce you to the expectations businesses have and force you to start mastering the latest digital platforms.
Poor Quality
Populating a website with content involves a lot of time and effort. Especially when you try producing visual content such as infographics and videos, you can expect to invest a lot in your content. However, you might not want to. If you already have too much work to do, you might quickly create an article, throw it online, and hope it “sticks.” It won’t.
Shoppers go online at practically every stage of the customer cycle. Whether they’re researching a problem or choosing between several brands, they need information that meets their needs and expectations. For this reason, Google and other search engines assess the quality of your content as they determine page rank. To make digital marketing work for you, publishing only high-quality content to your website and social media profiles.
Naive Expectations
Many businesses fail because they buy into pay-per-click advertising and other opportunities without knowing what they want to achieve. Avoid this mistake by deciding what you want for your business. Next, you need to decide what you want to achieve from each of your marketing campaigns.
While setting goals helps define what you hope to gain, you also need to assess the amount of time and money that you will spend. Additionally, you should create a realistic estimate of your expected ROI. To make this possible, set and track key performance indicators (KPIs). This will help you tweak your digital marketing campaigns as they progress so you can optimize your results.
Skepticism
If you own or manage a business and don’t use the internet much, you might not get too excited about digital marketing. You could have an unfavorable view of the online world and have a failure bias. Similarly, if you work as a marketing professional, the people at the top of your organization may not value the potential of the internet.
Skepticism, regardless of whether it’s yours or someone else’s, can quickly explain why digital marketing doesn’t work for you. To get around this roadblock try to regard social media and other digital platforms as pieces of a puzzle that, if adequately used together can create a beautiful and profitable picture for your brand. In other words, focus on the benefits of each platform rather than their technical nuances.
In conclusion, you should find out why digital marketing doesn’t work for you. The problem could be as simple as having the wrong standard for success. If it’s the experience you need, have patience while you learn how to design and execute profitable campaigns. Meanwhile, stay updated with the latest trends, demand high-quality content and carefully nudge yourself and your business into the vast unknown. Most of all, never give up.
Falling Off Google’s Radar: ‘Where have all my rankings gone?’
A primary objective of a successful search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is to increase a website’s visibility to consumers searching online for a brand’s products or services. Most online businesses achieve a measure of success through SEO. Over time, however, some strategies begin to falter and must be supplemented or revamped. Otherwise, rankings may be lost permanently. Unless trends are noted and reversed, other key metrics such as traffic, conversions and revenues will likely decline also.
There are many reasons that rankings drop. Chief among them is the technical aspects of your website. Search engines like Google take into account site speed, structure, security and usability when deciding how well a website ranks. These parameters change often and are up to each search engine’s discretion. A site could rank very well for years only to discover that Google now wants sites to have responsive designs that work on all mobile devices. Not having this could cause you to disappear from the searches.
Your site’s keyword list must also be scrutinized and updated, and any that are no longer performing well must be removed and replaced with more relevant search terms. Related site pages must be updated, as well. Also, for a business to reach its potential online, an SEO campaign must be continuous. A solid, ongoing SEO campaign as part of an overall digital marketing strategy ensures an online enterprise not only stays in business but thrives.
Many Visitors But No Customers: ‘I’m getting qualified traffic but not enough conversions.’
When those searching for a site’s specific products and services are visiting the site but not buying, it’s time to consider your conversion rate optimization (CRO) initiatives. By tracking visitors’ on-site behaviors, you can analyze the results to discover what needs to be addressed on your site.
Generally, updates to content, navigation, even the shopping cart, may be considered. The value of CRO is that it pinpoints exactly at what point in the potential sales funnel a breakdown occurs. In turn, remediation initiatives will target exactly what needs to be fixed, so you don’t have to take a wild guess at the root cause of the issue.
Facebook Failure: ‘We tried social media without success. What did we do wrong?
Social media is expected to total 25% of online marketing spend in 2018. According to a study, 81% of all small and medium-size businesses are projected to use multiple social media platforms, while another study found that 91% of retailers use at least two or more social media channels.
So, for online business owners who have turned their backs on these platforms, it’s time to revisit your social media channels. What can brands do to improve their presence on social media outlets? Create engagement and brand loyalty by being proactive and responsive. For example, demonstrate excellent customer service by immediately addressing negative reviews and comments, and offer a reasonable solution. There are numerous other strategies for increasing a brands’ reach via social media, such as guest posting, leveraging influencers and reposting responses. However, the primary takeaway is not to forget the person in “personal interaction” on these outlets. According to Social Media Week, personalization is paramount because “people trust people more than they trust faceless, corporate brands.”
Responsive Site Letdown: ‘Most of my mobile traffic leaves within seconds.
If qualified traffic is quickly leaving a website, that site is leaving something to be desired. There are two likely culprits: slow load times and a site that doesn’t look and perform the same across all platforms such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops. Google has noted that visitors using mobile devices will leave a site within seconds (usually for a competitor’s) if the product/service page they’re seeking does not load quickly on their screen.
Remember, mobile use is only growing. According to Statista, as of February 2017, mobile devices accounted for 49.7% of webpage views worldwide, and that number is only expected to increase. Scrutinize your traffic/conversions on mobile devices and seek out ways to improve page design and the user experience overall. Ease of use is a primary goal for web designers who create responsive websites. This means that for mobile users, the desktop version adjusts so that the entire webpage fills their device’s screen. Streamline design, keep it uncluttered and reduce the number of keystrokes from the entry point to purchase to facilitate the sales funnel and increase the user experience.
Website metrics such as traffic, pages visited, duration of visits and conversions are trackable. Therefore, all SEO, CRO and social media campaigns are reportable and accountable in a sound digital marketing strategy. This way, business owners can be fully aware of their digital marketing campaign’s efficacy and ensure that it is modified as needed to yield optimal results.