by We know that making mistakes is human, but in a sector as competitive as digital marketing, mistakes can end up being expensive.
There are many blunders that are very common in our sector and that, if not monitored, can end up ruining the best thought out strategy. So without further ado, I invite you to continue reading to find out what are the biggest digital marketing mistakes and how to avoid them in time.
The 10 most serious mistakes in digital marketing
Mistake number 1: Not taking advantage of your content
Creating quality content that really adds value to the user is not an easy task, since it involves many hours of creative and production work. If we don’t make the most of each content, that effort will multiply by having to start from scratch each time.
To avoid this digital marketing mistake, we have to propose 360 content campaigns. For example, we create a landing page to download an ebook on the topic that interests us and then we structure a series of content around it:
- A series of blog articles that cover different sections in detail, designed to position and with a call to action to download the ebook.
- Several videos focused on the same topic, which can be used to enrich the articles and also to be posted on YouTube with a call to action towards the ebook.
- Infographics that serve to illustrate the ebook and articles and can serve as shareable content itself.
- Or even podcasts that take advantage of the audio of the videos already created.
Mistake number 2: Constantly changing your social ads campaigns
We know that we have to continuously optimize our online campaigns, but over-optimization also has its own risks.
When we create social ads campaigns, for example, on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, we come across many segmentation variables. These platforms have automatic learning algorithms that help us improve the results of the campaigns, but for them to work, they need to gradually learn.
So when you create a new social ads campaign, leave it unchanged for at least 3-4 days. In this way, the algorithm will increasingly optimize the public to which it shows the ads and you will see how the costs per click and per conversion drop more and more. Once this reasonable time has passed, we can begin to assess the results and make changes to optimize the campaign even more.
Mistake number 3: Launching a campaign without knowing how we are going to measure the results
In digital marketing we can measure almost everything we do in real time, but sometimes we miss out on this power. Mistake!
Before launching a campaign, we have to be very clear about what our objective is, what specific action we will consider a conversion and what are the results we hope to obtain. For example, “I want to generate 50 leads a day, with a cost of 2 euros per lead and a conversion rate of 3%”.
These figures will allow us to evaluate the campaign and see if we are getting closer to the objective. Logically, we will not always get it right the first time, but the good thing is that we can learn very quickly: in a few days we will be able to assess the first data and make changes if necessary.
Mistake 4: Having too many targets for a single action
One of the big mistakes in digital marketing is not knowing how to prioritize and wanting to reach everything. For example, in many cases what we want is to generate awareness or work on consideration, but we also expect direct conversions and if we don’t get them, we consider that the action hasn’t worked.
To clarify the priorities, we have to think that when a user starts a conversion process, they are doing a series of steps. What we need is for this conversion path to be very clear and to set a single call to action for each campaign, for example, for users to watch a video, download content or contact us. The clearer the path is and the fewer distractions there are, the better results we will achieve.
Mistake number 5: Launch a landing page without doing an A/B test
A/B testing is a true secret “weapon” that helps us optimize marketing and improve every element of our campaigns. They can (and should!) be used with all types of content, but above all there are two that are a priority due to their influence when it comes to generating results: landing pages and email marketing campaigns.
Therefore, the recommendation is always to launch two different versions of your landing page to be able to compare the results with each other from the first minute. You can continuously experiment with different elements, such as the page layout, the title or the call to action. After a few tests, you will have much more information about what really works and your landing page will manage to generate many more conversions.
Mistake 6: Writing blog posts without research
Producing content is concentrated work, so we need to do our absolute best to put forth certain that the attempt will accomplish the greatest outcomes.
Valuable content is the one that is adapted to the needs and pain points of the client, and it is possible that our clients are very different from us. For this reason, the first thing to do is to investigate the needs of customers, relying on:
- Keyword research. Using a tool such as the Google planner, SemRush or similar, we will check the most frequent searches for our products and services, the volume of queries and the competition.
- Questions from our own customers, for example, the questions they often ask the sales team.
With all this information, we will be able to create content with much more chances of positioning and generating more traffic.
Mistake number 7: Forget about technical SEO
Focusing SEO solely on keyword strategy is a mistake. Yes, it is important to do good keyword marketing research, write quality articles, publish pillar pages and topic clusters… but the reality is that the technical part of your website also greatly affects positioning.
In order not to make this digital marketing mistake, you should work with technical SEO experts to help you improve CSS and load times, maintain an updated sitemap and robots.txt file, fix 404 errors, do 301 redirects correct and other key elements for the health of your website and its positioning in search engines.
Error number 8: Making massive submissions to the database
Sending emails to the entire database at once can give results in the short term, but in the long term the relationship with the client will end up suffering and we will not be taking advantage of the full potential of the data.
To avoid this digital marketing error, we have to segment the database from the beginning, both with the data provided by the user himself in the form and with the data that we can derive from his behavior, for example, the products he buys, the frequency of the orders or the pages you visit within our website.
In this sense, email marketing automation is a key opportunity to offer more personalization. In a short time, the vast majority of companies will be segmenting based on behavior, so if we manage to get ahead of ourselves in our sector, we will be able to offer a better user experience.
Mistake number 9: Not understanding the customer journey and when to contact the customer
The purchasing processes of each brand are very different: longer, shorter, with different points of contact… Universal solutions do not work, so we have to know our own situation very well.
When you know the customer journey, you understand all the phases and you know the information that the user needs at all times. In this way, you can reach him at the right time and with the right solution to solve his problem and add value.
Mistake number 10: Not taking into account the Customer Centric
We live in a time when the consumer is fed up with brands only talking about themselves. Given the wide range of products and services, we choose companies that make us feel good and that take our needs into account. The focus, therefore, must always be on the client.
For new companies, starting from scratch, it is easier to adapt to this paradigm from the beginning. But for those with many decades of history, it can be a difficult challenge, as they tend to be organized around products and efficiency.
