Make It Work: How to Fix 5 Common Online Marketing Strategy Mistakes
If your online marketing strategies aren’t generating the results you were hoping for, one or more of these common marketing mistakes may be to blame.
Online marketing strategies can be highly effective when used correctly, but there is a definite margin for error.
If you are making any of these common marketing mistakes, you may be effectively sabotaging your own efforts instead of helping your business succeed.
To help ensure your marketing efforts are helping, not hurting your business, we've got examples of five mistakes business make, and some simple online marketing tips that should get your strategies back on track.
1. Your Website Isn’t Optimized to Show Up on Top Search Results
What to do instead: Apply SEO tactics to gain a higher search position.
Ninety-five percent of customers only look on the first page of Google results when they are searching for services or products online, according to market research. That means that if your website isn´t showing up in the first page of search results, you´re essentially invisible to potential customers.
Applying SEO or Search Engine Optimization will improve your website´s position in search results. Through the use of keywords, links, content, and social media strategies, an SEO expert can optimize your website so it gains a more prominent visibility with Google and the other search engines.
2. Your Website Doesn’t Perform Well on Mobile Devices
What to do instead: Switch to a responsive web design.
If your website offers a poor user experience when accessed by visitors using mobile devices, it can cost you customers and significantly damage your bottom line. Eighty percent of consumers use a smartphone to access the Internet, according to insights from the Global Web Index. With this many people searching on their phone, you want to make sure your site has a flawless responsive design.
People aren’t going to stick around if your site is difficult to navigate or access on their mobile device. Forty percent of mobile consumers have gone to a competitor’s website after a bad mobile web experience, according to Google´s Mobile Playbook.
Not only are you looking to improve user experience, but Google and other search engines show preference to sites that are mobile friendly, so you aren’t going to be helping your organic search rankings with a site that isn’t mobile friendly.
Switching to a mobile-friendly responsive web design can turn your under-performing website into one of your most effective online marketing strategies. Responsive web designs automatically adjust navigation features, type, and viewing areas to deliver flawless performance on every device.
Making sure your site is properly coded to show the necessary information in a mobile-friendly format for mobile devices without getting dinged by google or other search engine’s systems is key.
Once you upgrade to a responsive web design, your customers will have a superior experience no matter how they access your website, so they never have to seek out competitors´ sites instead.
3. Trying to Use Too Many Social Media Channels at Once
What to do instead: Narrow your focus to three or four channels to start
Since you’re eager to see your business succeed, it can be tempting to try to establish a presence on every social media marketing strategy that your customers may be using.
The problem with that is there are literally hundreds of social media marketing platforms that are active on the internet. Trying to engage visitors on too many social sites is not going to help your business succeed. You’re just going to find yourself producing thin content or posting inconsistently because you’re pressed for time.
Scale back your social marketing efforts and focus on just the three or four platforms that are most popular with your customers. You’ll find your social marketing strategies are much more effective when you have the time send out well-written posts on a consistent schedule.
4. Adopting a “One Size Fits All” Email Marketing Strategy
What to do instead: Segment your subscriber list and send out personalized offers
You know your customers aren’t all the same, so why would you expect a single email newsletter to generate a universally positive response?
Your customers have different interests, are in different places in the sales funnel, and are searching for different products and services. Sending out the same email to all your subscribers just doesn’t make good marketing sense, because there’s no single offer that will hold a universal appeal.
Segmenting your subscriber list can turn your failing email marketing campaign into one of your mosteffective online marketing strategies. Separate your subscribers into three or four groups according to their interests, demographics, or other marketing metrics.
Send out tightly targeted email newsletters with personalized discounts or offers designed to appeal to each segment. You’ll achieve a higher click-through rate with these personalized offers, a MailChimp survey found that using segmented email campaigns can generate a click rate more than 50 percent higher than with non-segmented lists.
5. You’re Not Sure Which of Your Marketing Strategies Are Actually Working
What to do instead: Start using analytics to refine your marketing strategies’ focus
If you aren’t checking to see which of your marketing strategies are actually generating results, you can end up wasting your valuable time and resources on initiatives that aren’t doing anything to help your business.
Every interaction your visitors have with your online marketing strategies produces information that you can use to judge how effectively each strategy is marketing your business.
Google offers several free web analytic tools to help you mine this information. Use them to check which of your posts and blogs inspire the most click-throughs, which generate the most actionable leads, and which strategies are getting a pass from your customers.
With the in-depth information you gain about your visitors’ behavior, you can adjust your online marketing strategies to make them more effective.
Use these insights to refine your marketing strategies – drop the strategies that don’t work, concentrate on the ones that are garnering the best response, and you’ll achieve a much better overall ROI for your online marketing strategies.
Takeaway
Online marketing strategies can be highly effective marketing tools when used correctly. As long as you keep the focus on what works for your customers and monitor your strategies’ performance, you’ll be able to make your online marketing efforts more effective than ever before.
