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10 Digital Marketing Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Brand

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How can a simple hashtag ruin your marketing campaign?

This is what Warburton, a British baking company asked themselves after their hashtag debacle. Warburton’s digital marketing team didn’t realize that their simple holiday hashtag #CrumpetCreations would have inappropriate connotations related to the anthropomorphic community. A little research before posting the hashtag would have saved the brand a lot of embarrassment.

Even seemingly trivial hashtags can sometimes shake the online world. They may not tarnish the brand’s image forever but they still leave a bad impression in the minds of some customers. Although using inappropriate hashtags isn’t one of the 10 digital marketing mistakes below, they are easily overlooked just as much like the hashtag. Now let’s explore the 10 biggest digital marketing mistakes that you should be avoiding.

  • Not converting website traffic to sales

80% of website visitors leave a page because they can’t find what they’re looking for. Millions of visitors go to a website every day but only 20% of them actually consider buying what the brand has to offer. So, marketers need to start from the beginning  — first, they need to decide if their offer has any merit, and then focus on getting more eyeballs to see that offer. They often do the reverse and end up losing many customers in the initial stages of the sales funnel. This is one of the biggest digital marketing mistakes that should be avoided at all costs.

  • Using social media as just a promotion tool 

JetBlue, the popular discount airline, is one company that understands that social media isn’t just for product promotions. Their Twitter feed is a little unusual — instead of blatant promotional content, you see a sea of replies that they send as an answer to their customers’ queries, feedback, or complaints. The lesson here is clear — social media isn’t just another promotional avenue, it is an interactive platform that allows you to address customers’ pressing issues quickly and easily.

  • Pushing your prospects over the edge too soon

Imagine a shopper who has just added a product in his cart but isn’t sure if he wants to buy it yet. Nevertheless, he clicks checkout and he’s asked to Login or Sign up and that immediately causes him to pull back. He leaves your website. This probably wouldn’t have happened if there was an easy guest login option. Marketers don’t realize that some customers may not be willing to commit to their brand just yet. So when you push an unsure customer to give out their personal information too soon, you can lose a potential sale. Similar to this, sending promotional emails to people who have just signed up for your newsletter might cause them to hit the dreaded unsubscribe button.

  • Not investing in paid campaigns

In a world of online businesses, it has become incredibly hard to get new customers to notice your brand.  Hence, many marketers turn to paid media. Over 95.8% of social media managers believe Facebook ads gave them the best ROI. With minimal spending on ad campaigns, your brand can target users that were not possible before. And a paid ad campaign on Google or Facebook takes minutes to set up, after which you’re on your way to reaching millions of new users.

  • Focusing too much on the product rather than the audience

Having a clear understanding of what your target market wants, is equally as important as the product that a brand sells. Take, for example, Dollar Shave Club, a men’s grooming company. They have understood the pulse of today’s social media-crazed generation. So they create ads that are silly and humorous to attract their younger target audience. In a category that is dominated by feature-centric advertising, DSC stands out due to its entertaining approach to the boring razor.

  • Tracking partial metrics of success

The majority of marketers look at total site visits (81%) and click-through rates (79%) as indicators of success. However, only ~45% of marketers measure the influence of their campaigns on the revenue and the number of pipeline opportunities created. They are unable to carefully analyse the metrics that really hit the top line of business — Cost of Acquisition and Average Customer Value. Since the end goal of marketing is increasing revenue, measuring non-revenue metrics doesn’t help in improving the impact of the campaign.

  • Depending on only social media to get leads

Remember Orkut, MySpace, or FriendFeed? These were extremely popular social media platforms back in the day that have been forgotten with time. Marketers often forget the fickle nature of social media platforms. Realistically, your social media audience can disappear any second if the platform goes down — or worse, a new one comes in. That’s why it’s important to build your leads on your own, using the plain old email. Your email list will be with you even when no other platform is.

  • Producing too much content

Thinking content quantity trumps quality is one of the most detrimental of all 10 digital marketing mistakes. Quality content does something for the audience — it either engages, entertains, or educates them. Just take the example of the finance tracking tool Mint, which added value in customers’ lives with its informative blog posts and infographics, which helped them in making better financial decisions. Mint’s digital marketing efforts were applauded by audiences and ultimately helped the tool gain massive online traction. So it’s a no brainer that putting 10 hours to produce 1 article is better than producing 10 unengaging articles in 1 day.

  • Trying to use all the tools available

With hundreds of new tools available at the disposal of digital marketers, it’s easy to commit too much too soon to the alleged ‘next big thing’. But marketers shouldn’t forget about the tried-and-tested tactics that have worked for their business. A great example of this comes from KFC. The restaurant giant adopted a simple yet effective way to communicate the fact that their fried chicken had 11 spices and herbs. Their official twitter account follows the five Spice Girls and six guys named ‘Herb’. When people got a whiff of this brilliant move, they couldn’t help but talk about it. This strategy was executed beautifully on plain old Twitter, without the use of any fancy digital marketing tools or a big budget.

  • Not integrating marketing and sales goals

The statistic that almost 75% of leads never convert into a sale is a big sign that most of us forget that sales and marketing go hand in hand. Marketing followed by an ineffective sales pitch or marketing without sales insight may not give results as expected. Both teams need to work as one to ensure that the ultimate goal of growing the revenue pie is achieved.

When it comes to digital marketing the world is your oyster. With the evolving technology, comes the unlimited permutations and combinations of tools that we can use to build a winning digital marketing strategy. And although, it’s easy to be overwhelmed, avoiding the biggest digital marketing mistakes can ease your worries and help you make an effective strategy.

Marketing Maximus Magazine by Pink Lemonade
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