10 Costly Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2016

10 Costly Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2016

By Liz Prugh 

With the new year here, marketers have been working on and executing their 2016 digital marketing strategy. All professionals have plans to grow their business, build their brand, and be a leader in their industry. While a sense of urgency is essential to hitting all of these goals, there are some mistakes to avoid during the planning and execution stages. These mistakes will set your business back in hitting your revenue targets, resulting in wasted time, effort, and cost.

Not Knowing Your Audience  Knowing your audience is the first place to start in building your digital marketing strategy. Without a clear understanding of your audience and its needs, your entire strategy will crumble. Digital marketing isn't just about publishing content, tweets, and Facebook posts; it's about getting a return on your efforts. If you don't clearly understand your audience, you won't be rewarded with the results you're looking for.

 Lack Of Focus  In addition to knowing your audience, there needs to be a clear focus. Invest in the areas you know what works first for quick, quality wins. Long-term goals are a part of your digital strategy, but solid rewards along the way drives consistent and improved effort into reaching those longer goals, keeping momentum throughout your organization.

Not Setting The Right Expectations  Expectations are key in setting your marketing team up for success and knowing where your team is in hitting annual targets. With every campaign launched, set a realistic goal. Factors that help set your goal can be budget for the campaign and ensuring you're targeting the right audience. Come up with these numbers and audience types by reviewing past campaigns and analyzing the results and factors that went into producing them. Knowing or estimating the timeline from planning to execution is also a major factor in knowing when to expect results.

Lack Of Metrics  An essential part of any campaign strategy is establishing metrics of success. Measure your campaigns results against these metrics to determine where you're getting the most ROI so you can invest intelligently in future campaigns.

Not Using Social In The Most Effective Way  Don't post to social just for the sake of it; use these platforms to your advantage. Know the strengths of each platform as it pertains to your business. Facebook may be the best platform for customer engagement, and LinkedIn may be the best tool for sales prospecting. Craft your campaigns by the channel you're planning to use to garner the best results.

Not Enough Content  Like social, content is essential but needs to be strategic. Publish content that's:

Relevant to your brand; Speaks to the value of your product(s); Connects with your target audience and presents a solution for the problem(s) your business solves.

Evolving With Your Audience  This ties back to knowing your prospects and customers. Identify what your audience has responding well to: What has driven the most effective engagement? Based on your analysis, you may have to make minor or major shifts in your digital strategy.

Not Having A Determined Budget  Most particularly when you're launching social campaigns, budget is a significant factor in a campaign's success. Know your budget so you can set realistic goals and expectations for how your campaign will perform.

Not Staying Informed  The world of digital marketing is evolving constantly, and being informed on best practices, trends, and what audiences are looking for helps companies keep up. Never stop learning about how to leverage digital marketing tools to grow your business.

Lack Of Planning  A lack of planning could big the biggest mistake to make in executing on your digital marketing strategy. Your digital strategy should embody your brand, know your audience, and have clear goals that focus on growing your business.

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