The 10 Mistakes to Avoid in Your Digital Marketing Process

When you’re determining what your digital marketing process should encompass, there’s a lot to consider in terms of strategy — social media, SEO, and SEM all have to have the right wheels in motion. If you don’t have the right momentum going, you can make some costly mistakes that can waste time and even cause you to lose business.

Here are 10 mistakes to avoid in your digital marketing process:

1. Not Having A Plan

It’s important to think in a forward direction when it comes to your digital content, social media, SEO, and SEM strategy. Work with your in-house staff and outside agencies to create calendars, deadlines, and consistently fresh ideas that can be executed.

Without a forward plan, you have no way to hold everyone accountable. Set goals and work to achieve them as a team. The alternative is wasting valuable company time and resources and being disappointed in the end.

2. Not Performing A Competitive Analysis

Use tools to see how your website is doing versus your competition. If they’re doing something right, find a way to emulate it, and if they’re doing something wrong, work hard to not make the same mistakes and capitalize on the opportunity to do a better job.

Scour their sites and check to see what their social media presence is like. Also, with the right assistance and know how you can see where they rank from an SEO standpoint. Prioritize it.

3. Not Knowing Where Your Site Ranks

It’s important to know where your website stands among the rankings before moving forward with a comprehensive SEO strategy. Perform a full SEO website audit to see how your landing pages are performing for keywords or phrases.

You may be doing better than you think and there may be some areas for opportunity that you wouldn’t be able to catch without knowing where you stand first. You have to know where you’re at before you can establish SEO and SEM goals for the future.

4. Being Brand Centric In Your Social Media Marketing Process

Use tools like DrumUp and set up Google Alerts for news related to stories that your audience will care about so you have valuable information to share with them. They don’t just want to hear about you all the time.

For example, if you’re a residential real estate company, post about exciting things going on in your community. Simply listing houses that are for sale and facts and figures alone will not engage your audience. Show them that you care and you want to engage with them, instead of just promoting yourself.

Having this type of marketing process for your brand will build trust with your fans and followers and help you gain new ones in the process. Be a thought leader in the social space. It pays off in the long run!

5. Not Doing Your Homework

Even if you’ve hired the best team to help you with your digital marketing process, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be involved. If you’re a newbie to digital marketing, read up on best practices and consider taking a few free online classes on the topic.

Knowing a bit about what you’re talking about will help you to manage and work with everyone to execute the best plan possible in the long run.

6. Ignoring Customer Feedback

Not responding to or deleting a negative blog comment, tweet, or Facebook comment is almost always the wrong move to make. You should be using it as an opportunity to engage and improve as a company.

Also, if you don’t respond promptly and work to solve the issue, the customer could go to other channels and the problem can become worse. One negative blog comment can spiral into 10 nasty emails and a tweet storm if you don’t do some amount of damage control.

7. Not Knowing Which Platform To Reach Your Audience On

According to a report by Social Media Examiner, 85% of marketers have no idea which social media platforms best suit their brands. Not knowing this key element to the digital marketing process is a huge blind spot.

First, you have to know the demographics of your target audience. Then, you can get a good idea of which platforms work best in order to reach them.

8. Setting Unrealistic Goals

It’s always good to aim high with your marketing process, but if you don’t set attainable goals, you’re going to be constantly disappointed and miss the bigger picture.

SEO campaigns can 4-6 weeks to show even the slightest results, and 6 months to a year to show the big results and ROI you’re probably looking for. It’s ok to want your investment to pay off, but it’s going to take time and it’s important to celebrate the small victories along the way.

A blog post that’s picking up some steam in Google Analytics may turn into your biggest converter for sales if you keep putting your budget into content marketing, SEO, and SEM. You never know. Patience is key.

9. Not Making Content A Cornerstone Of Your Marketing Process

If you don’t have a strong foundation of quality content on your landing pages and on your blog, chances are that your social media, SEO, and SEM strategies won’t perform as well as you want them to. Many experts believe it’s the first place to put your marketing budget.

Content is not just about the written word anymore. Video content is incredibly important in terms of achievable measurable results. It’s an essential part of any digital marketing budget.

10. Trying To Do It On Your Own

Even with a shoestring budget, you should contact a marketing professional to guide you in the right direction. You may be surprised by what you can accomplish with less of a financial investment than you think.

Don’t wait until you have a solid marketing process built out and a giant budget before investing time and money in your business’ digital success. Contact our professional SEO, SEM, and social media agency. We can help.