Every single marketer makes mistakes sooner or later. This is normal and the truth is that most mistakes do not matter much. They are just learning opportunities.
The problem is that the big online marketing mistakes can easily lead to a lot of lost time and can become debilitating.
To keep things as simple as possible, the big online marketing mistakes are connected to efficiency. For instance:
- Inefficiently using time.
- Inefficiently using data.
- Inefficiently using resources.
- Inefficiently using money.
While we cannot explore every single online marketing mistake possible, we can avoid the most common ones. We will thus focus on those that are way more common than they should be.
Excessive Use Of Social Media
It is very easy to be drawn in by social media’s potential. Just think about the following stats from Oberlo:
- 3.5 billion people use social media every day.
- The average person spends 3 hours per day on social networks and messaging.
- 91% of social media users access social channels via mobile devices.
Businesses naturally think that they need to be present on social media. Obviously, this is correct. However, you do not need to be on all networks and you do not have to post several times per day if this is not possible based on the resources you have access to.
One of the biggest online marketing mistakes is the belief that the business needs to be present on all platforms. In many cases, this simply does not make sense.
Keep in mind that the best way to use social media is to promote your content, services, and products where your audience spends time. Does your audience spend time on TikTok? If not, you do not need to post content there.
Few brands understand the differences between social networks. At the same time, few have access to the resources needed to manage a huge online presence on social media.
Eventually, when you have too many profiles set up, you fall into a trap. You end up posting something just to post. As a result, your posts are not engaging and you just waste time and resources.
Key Takeaway: If your business cannot produce high-quality social media content, you have to limit channels and only use those that are the most appropriate.
Only Relying On Organic Social Media Reach
Basically, organic reach is simply how many people see the content you share on social media without using paid distribution. Paid reach is made out of people that see the content because you paid for promotion.
At first glance, there is nothing wrong with businesses relying on organic reach. But if we dig deeper, it makes no sense not to use paid reach.
As an example, in many situations, there is an agency that handles content creation for social media for the business. In order to create posts, they need to be approved by the client, designers are involved, and basically, a lot of work and time is put into the creation of every single post.
Then…nobody sees it.
There is this wrong belief that it is easy to reach a lot of people on social media if you just post often. This is incorrect because the competition is much higher than it used to be and algorithms changed.
Organic reach is low. Paid reach is affordable and very useful in marketing.
Key Takeaway: Do not rely just on organic reach because you will not get a huge audience. Even a few dollars spent on a post can do wonders.
A Focus On Irrelevant Vanity Metrics
Being focused on vanity metrics is a very easy way to create campaigns that do not work.
Vanity metrics are practical things like downloads, page views, or registered users. Basically, many businesses choose to track metrics that only make the marketer feel great. Does it really matter how many likes you get on a Facebook post if the post is meant to generate newsletter signups?
A very good example of being stuck and tracking the wrong metrics is the post that is meant to lead to hiring an employee. Let’s say the business is looking for a designer and a Facebook post is written.
Oftentimes, the business tries to get the highest possible reach. The belief that this would lead to the best possible hiring result is incorrect.
Usually, this online marketing mistake appears when we see larger businesses that hire marketing agencies. In so many such cases we see campaigns created with a focus on vanity metrics, not on ROI, which is much more important.
Key Takeaway: Choose the correct metrics to track for every single online marketing campaign you create. What you achieve with your posts needs to be useful for the business.
Not Being Careful With The Copy
Nowadays, UX (user experience) is vital for businesses. Even Google thinks so.
How do you quickly improve the user experience of a website?
You write a good copy!
One of the biggest possible marketing mistakes is to get the copy wrong.
The truth is you need very good copy for countless campaigns and parts of your website. This includes things like buttons, CTAs, and popups.
Most businesses do not understand how important microcopies are. To put it as simple as possible, microcopies are all the helpful directions, pointers, and lines that are added to a site to turn content from good to great.
Very good UX copywriters are nowadays paid just as much as designers. This is how important they are in the large scheme of things. A smart tweak can drastically increase sign-ups, sales, and conversions.
Unfortunately, UX copywriting is oftentimes the responsibility of the same writer that wrote the rest of the article on a page. While that person can be great at blogging, it is rare that he/she is also great at UX writing.
An even worse situation is when the developer or designer is the person responsible for all microcopies.
Remember that the use of voice search is growing. Because of this, copy is more important than ever since voice search uses specific trigger words. Regular writers do not know what these trigger words are.
Key Takeaway: Hire experienced copywriters for all aspects of the online marketing campaign you create, including microcopies.
Doing Too Many Things At Once
Last but not least, this is a very easy mistake to make in online marketing. In fact, I think every single marketer made this mistake at least a few times until he/she figured out this is not a good idea.
The common scenario goes like this:
- The small business wants customers.
- The small business tries to do a little bit of everything, like SEO, emailing, social media, and more.
Then, results do not appear. Why is that?
The reason for failure in such a case is that you did not master any form of digital marketing you use. As opposed to using way too many marketing strategies, it is better to focus on a single one.
As an example, work hard on building an email list. Then, you will be able to use that email list as you use another marketing strategy. Basically, you want to take it one step at a time.
Final Thoughts
As I already mentioned, making mistakes is a part of the job. However, learning from them is crucial.
At the end of the day, the most important thing is making sure that the marketing campaigns you work on have a good strategy behind them and the right ROIs are utilized. Take it one step at a time and use the tools you have available and that you know how to use. The same can be said about the marketing channels used.