The most common mistakes in marketing

There are a lot of mistakes or errors that you can make when it comes to online marketing.

It is important to learn from these mistakes and try not to repeat them.

But, there are some very important mistakes that people make every day.

Below we will present to you the most common mistakes that people/companies make on a daily basis, as well as the solutions to these problems.

You don't have a blog for your website

Why does your website need blogs?

Because the blogs increase website traffic.

Businesses with blogs have with 97% more hits, which also helps increase traffic.

Blogs can also help you build relationships with your potential customers.

It's a creative way to interact with consumers and let them interact with you.

So, let people add comments to your blog and try to respond to those comments for the most effective consumer feedback.

You can also connect your blog with your social media accounts.

So you can share your blog post links with your social media followers. It's a great way to keep all of your pages connected and generate continuous traffic.

Avoid social media

Your business needs to be on social media.

Social media is a great way to interact with your customers, being the most used, even globally. They are also not expensive.

Unlike other marketing avenues, it won't cost you anything to create a Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account.

Of course, it will cost you money if you want to buy ads or pay someone to handle the pages.

But this is still less expensive compared to traditional marketing efforts.

Your business will benefit from social media accounts.

Your customers use these platforms, so you should too.

An important tip is not to buy your followers after you create your profiles.

You might get discouraged if you don't have a lot of people following your page right away.

That will change, and buying followers doesn't do you any good, because you won't get any additional engagement from them.

Forget to consider mobile users

Everyone has a phone in their pocket, and they don't just use it to make calls.

Make sure you don't overlook customers who use mobile in particular.

Having a website is not enough.

Any website needs to be optimized for mobile devices because customers need to get the best experiences from your website.

Following a survey carried out some time ago, 50% among people they said they would choose to buy from a company less often if it didn't have a mobile-friendly site, even if they liked the brand.

Besides, 48% of people believe that businesses don't care about their business or their customers if their website isn't optimized for mobile users.

If applicable and possible, you can also consider creating a mobile app for your business.

Regardless of whether you're going to create an app or not, you need to make sure your website is mobile-friendly.

Never offer discounts or promotions

It is very important to reward your customers.

You need to offer discounts and promotions to encourage buying and attract people to your company and website.

Offering discounts will increase traffic to your store or web page and at the same time, you will encourage people to purchase your products or services.

Offering a discount on a certain product will encourage the customer to purchase other products, perhaps even at full price, due to the fact that they already bought a product at a super price.

Coupons also build a stronger relationship with your customers.

According to a survey, 91% of people say they will visit a retailer again after receiving a coupon or discount.

Discounts are a great way to acquire new customers and retain your existing customers, creating loyalty from them.

Almost 50% of people said they would switch brands based on a coupon offer.

You can gain a significant advantage over your competitors if you start offering coupons or discounts to their customers.

Forget about using videos

Most people think of Facebook and Twitter when they hear the terms social media.

But what about YouTube?

Youtube is where most of the population spends their time.

So your business also needs a YouTube page.

So you can use the videos from your YouTube channel on other digital marketing platforms.

I was talking about Facebook above; well, this is also a good option if you want to create and post videos.

Even Instagram allows you to post videos that are around 1 minute long.

Videos are engaging and help capture the attention of consumers. Video content marketing is a great strategy to get people to your website.

Don't measure your return on investment (ROI)

How much money are you spending on your online marketing strategies?

What kind of profit do you get?

Don't just blindly throw money at digital marketing strategies without measuring ROI.

If you don't measure ROI, you won't know how successful your strategy has been.

Failed campaigns can put a hole in your account if you keep repeating them.

It's important to keep doing what works and abandon or change what doesn't work or doesn't produce any results.

There are different metrics available for determining the return on your marketing investment.

Calculating your return on investment is not as difficult as it sounds.

First, you need to figure out what you're measuring.

E.g:

• Traffic
• timely
• Click/access rates
• CONVERSION

Once you decide what your campaign goal is, you can calculate your ROI.

All you have to do is take the financial gain from the investment (profit) and subtract the cost of the investment.

Then divide that number by the total cost of your investment.

This is how you calculate your ROI.

Make sure you determine ROI for all your marketing campaigns.

It's the only way to see if your strategy has really been successful.

You don't have a target market

Who are you targeting with your online marketing campaigns?

You can't target everyone who owns a computer or everyone who has access to the Internet.

You need to narrow down your target market a bit more.

Consider the demographics of your current customers as well as those of your potential customers.

To those you must report.

Don't make assumptions about the demographics of your customer base or rely on common stereotypes, you might be surprised by the reality.

By narrowing down your target audience, you'll be more successful with your digital marketing campaigns and get more relevant leads.

Do not comment on your own blog

Commenting on your own blogs is a great way to accomplish two very important things:

• More effective communication with your subscribers.
• Improving SEO technique

That's right, comments can help you improve your site ranking.

Comments are a way to add words to your page

Engaging with your users can also benefit your brand, as your subscribers will feel closer and heard from you.

But make sure you add comments in a proper and professional way and try not to spam people with blog comments - no one wants to see that.

Your site is too slow

Slow websites can lead to much bigger problems for any business.

It's pointless to spend money, time and effort to drive people to your site - only to have them leave if it's too slow.

People don't have the patience to wait too long, that's why they're on the Internet - for quick access to information.

Customers will abandon your website if it takes too long to load.

Every second counts and you can't afford to lose customers.

So try to make it a priority and find the best solution for both you and your customers.

Spamming

It should go without saying that it's not good or ethical to spam your customers, but some people still do it, ruining any marketing efforts they've made up to that point.

How do you tell if you are a spam account?

First, check the emails you've sent to your customers in the past.

Ask yourself if each email is:

• Useful
• education
• Relevant

Relevance is extremely important because the message you want to convey must be relevant to everyone on your recipient list.

Some emails may be relevant to some of your customers but not to others.

You can avoid this by using email segmentation lists.

The last thing you want to do is get your subscribers to the point where they choose to unsubscribe.

They have already subscribed to your emails, which means they are genuinely interested in your content.

Give customers options when they sign up to receive content.

Ask them how often they want to receive emails.

Do they want to receive your monthly newsletter or your weekly promotion?

Or do they want both?

If customers only want to hear from you once a month, make sure that happens and don't contact them every day.

They will immediately unsubscribe and you will no longer be able to send them messages.

You fail to convert website traffic into future customers

You look at your website analytics and see the number of visitors continuing to increase, but your sales numbers remain the same.

What is the problem?

You have failed to convert your web traffic into sales.

How can you fix this?

First, make sure your website is easy to navigate.

Approximate 80% among visitors of a website leave a particular page because they can't find what they're looking for.

Try to have a clear and specific layout and content so that your visitors stay on the page.

For those of you who have an e-commerce page or online store, make sure there are plenty of search options and filters so users can quickly find what they want and make a purchase.

According to Salesforce, 71% of SMEs say their customers expect online transactions and almost the same proportion have an e-commerce presence. Maintaining an e-commerce presence is absolutely essential in the 21st century.”

Consumers don't want to spend a lot of time scrolling and searching.

They want quick results. So fast that they don't need to use a computer.

That's why most purchases are made on mobile phones.

If your website does not allow them to do this, they will buy from another website that is more accessible and user-friendly.

As mentioned above, make sure your website is optimized for mobile users.

Ignore abandoned shopping carts

For those of you with e-commerce websites, how do you handle customers who add something to their cart but don't complete the order?

If your answer is nothing, then you are doing something wrong.

These customers are just one or two clicks away from closing a sale.

You never wondered why customers abandon their carts instead of completing them?

Any payment process should be quick and easy to navigate.

Try to offer free shipping to your customers and avoid adding extra fees if possible.

Optimizing your checkout process can increase conversions by over 35%.

Don't optimize your page for search engines

Your website needs to be optimized for search, and ignoring SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tactics can be what will drag you down.

Why?

Customers won't be able to find you.

If you're not on the first page of their search results, you're not going to have any luck piquing their curiosity.

But you shouldn't necessarily pay to get on the first page, because most people ignore those pages labeled with AD.

You just need to make sure that you have the right keywords and phrases that people usually search for.

Refuse to show your posts on another page (Guest posting or Guest blogging)

In this marketing method you are not directly adding/sharing content on your website and some people may not agree.

But you need to consider that you have the opportunity to reach a whole new audience that may not even know you or your website exists.

It's a great chance to gain free exposure to a new audience.

In the example provided, with only 44 posts written for 41 blogs, you can increase your website traffic by 20% and at the same time, you can also increase your domain authority.

You lack customization

We all know that you need to be as personal as possible with your customers.

Sending an email addressed to "Hey everyone!" or "Hello!" it is not an effective personalization technique.

Instead, you can try using the customers' first or last names, and at the end, sign each message with your name.

It's more personal than "Sincerely, XYZ Company."

You can use your personal email address in the sender field for an even more personal touch.

This way, you'll make your customers feel like they're getting the message from a person, rather than an automated, anonymous sender.

If you have direct sales locations, talk to your customers when you see them, try to make emotional connections and you will win.

Being personable is a key factor in customer service success.

Don't consider email marketing either

If you've sent emails in the past and haven't had much success, you should reevaluate your methods.

Email marketing is extremely effective when you do it right.

You must send marketing emails that can actually generate a response.

Compared to other marketing techniques, emails have a much higher ROI.

One of the reasons why it produces a high ROI is that the costs are very low.

If you decide to use email marketing as well, make sure your emails are optimized for mobile devices.

More than half of the emails are open from mobile phones.

Your customers may delete your email without reading it if it is not optimized correctly.

Keep collecting email addresses and sending messages to your subscribers. It's a great way to help you retain your customers.

Don't use a call-to-action

What is the goal of your marketing campaign?

To what extent do you expect your customers to help you achieve this goal?

If you have a great ad but no call-to-action, it's basically useless.

But, make sure it's a good call-to-action, to encourage customers to take your proposal seriously.

Don't use ads like "New customers get 5% discount." because it doesn't sound enticing to anyone.

Instead, try "Visit our website before 9pm on 06/25/2021 to receive 20% off select items and free shipping on all purchases."

Next, include a link to your website.

This way, you give them a reason to visit your site and a deadline by which to do so.

Marketers usually ignore CTAs (call-to-action), but it's the biggest mistake because it can make your company stand out from the crowd.

You put too much emphasis on customer acquisition

It is not a mistake to try to attract as many new customers as possible, but it is important not to forget the old ones and not to ignore their importance.

That said, customer acquisition is only half the game plan.

Once you have a customer, you want to turn them into a customer for life.

What do you do to retain customers?

Why should you focus so much on customer retention? It is more likely sell to your existing customers.

Also, it is 6 to 7 times more expensive bringing in a new customer rather than keeping current customers.

So don't spend your entire marketing budget on new customers and make sure some of those funds go to customer retention.

Try to do everything yourself

Hire help because, you can't do it all yourself.

If you don't excel in certain areas of marketing, find someone who does.

Once you surround yourself with the right people, make sure everyone has a role.

Another mistake people make is that they don't know how to fairly divide the tasks of employees.

Sure, the efforts of your marketing team members will work towards achieving your marketing goals.

But everyone needs a mission.

You fail to manage your budget correctly

The first common mistake people make is not having a solid marketing budget.

The second mistake is misallocating funds from their marketing budget.

As we discussed earlier, if all of your marketing budget is going toward acquiring new customers, then you're neglecting to retain existing customers.

Here is an example of a diverse marketing budget.

You don't have to follow this chart exactly, but it's a good illustration to show that you need a complete marketing strategy, and your budget should reflect that plan accordingly.

Spending money across multiple channels and campaigns can help cover your costs if certain promotions don't perform as well as you anticipated.

Don't set your goals at the beginning

In marketing, you should always set at least one goal. Realistic goals.

It is necessary to create both short-term and long-term goals for your company.

1. What do you want to achieve?
2. How do you plan to get there?

Once you answer these questions, you can start planning your marketing strategy.

There it is some tips to help you set goals.

Make sure your team knows and understands your goals, as communication is key.

You need everyone on your team to reach the ultimate goal.

Goals can also help you allocate your marketing budget, which we talked about above.

Don't promote your website

It sounds silly, but too many marketers don't promote their websites.

It is not enough to have a website.

How do you attract customers to it?

Well, we also talked about search engine optimization above, but you can increase your website traffic without using SEO.

Try different strategies like banner ads to promote your website.

This method will help you bring new and existing customers to your page.

Conclusion

Don't be discouraged if you've gone through this list and realized you're making some of these mistakes, as I said, these are mistakes most of us make.

However, the first step is to admit that what you are doing is incorrect or wrong.

Once you have identified the errors, you can take appropriate steps to correct the errors.

Here's something else to keep in mind:

Many of these mistakes are connected.

Correcting one of these mistakes can help you with others.

Here is an example.

Let's say you've identified that you're not promoting your website.

What else on this list can fix this?

1. Launching a blog
2. Social media
3. Email marketing
4. SEO

Trying to correct just one of these mistakes will have a positive impact on other mistakes you make, so don't get overwhelmed.

Don't stop your successful online marketing strategies to focus on your mistakes.

Take the time to set realistic goals for how you want to improve.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization is search engine optimization. More precisely, it is a process, a technique by which the visibility of your website or page on search engine results is improved.

• What is online marketing?

Online marketing is a method by which, through online channels, ideas/messages about a company's name, products, services can be transmitted to its potential customers.

The most commonly used methods for this technique are email marketing, social networks (social media), SEO and many others.

• What does CTA mean?

Call-to-action (CTA) is a marketing term that refers to inviting or urging the reader to take a specific action. A good call-to-action should tell the reader exactly what action to take and how to act accordingly.

• Why do we need to calculate ROI?

Return on investment (ROI) means return on investment. This is a performance measure used to assess the efficiency or profitability of an investment and to verify whether the initial investment was worthwhile or not.

• What is the most effective online marketing method?

There is no such thing as the most effective or best online marketing method.

The important thing is to know what end goals you want, what types of customers you are targeting and what you are willing to offer.

Then you can decide for yourself, which types or methods of online marketing suit you better. Whether it's social media, search engine optimization, email marketing, or others, you ultimately decide which ones are right for your business.