1. Ignoring email marketing responsive design
The goal of email marketing is to nurture existing clients to purchase more in addition to converting prospects to clients. Many small businesses invest in copywriters to help them develop content for email marketing, but they fail in seeing the need to invest in an email template with a responsiveness design. Let me be straight with you as a person who has a love/hate relationship with email marketing: If your email marketing isn’t easy to read on a mobile device then it won’t get read. End of story. Your email will never, ever be opened again and most likely, potential buyers will automatically unsubscribe from your email list. If you aren’t investing in email marketing responsive design then you are burning through your content development dollars and turning off prospects. Get with the design or don’t waste their time.
2. A Harry Carry social media marketing plan…or no plan at all!
Social media marketing is not about sharing your own content. It is about connecting with prospects and customers. It is about meeting their needs with the content you share and how you engage. Just posting stuff randomly with no strategy is a waste of time and twitterverse space.
3. Minimizing text messaging marketing
Text marketing sounds like another exhausting way to market to customers. I feel exhausted just thinking about it, but if you are selling B2C and you are not using text marketing then you are giving away sales to your competition who are using it. I can guarantee the fact that you have competition who is using it with phenomenal results. Texting is instant and when is the last time you saw a customer without their phone in their purse or hand? “90% of all text messages are read within 3 minutes of receiving them” ~ Conversational Advertising.
4. Branding isn’t consistent.
Branding is your identity. Being inconsistent about branding reflects a small business that does not really know who they are, what services they have to offer and they don’t know their customer. Fail at branding….well, you have much deeper issues than just branding; it is time to go back to the drawing board.
5. Design for yourself
Everything about your digital presence is done by design. Your website has a specific layout according to your marketing place, graphic designers research colors according to user experience before designing logo and so on and so forth. CEO’s/Product designers often times do not trust the experts they hire. They let their emotions get the best of them and dictate design according to their own wants and not the needs of the customers. Scoring a big “’0” is user experience and that equates to a loss in sales and profit.
6. A/B Testing-Or lack thereof.
A/B Testing is the key to keeping ahead of your competition! User experience trends are constantly changing. What works today with your audience might not work in 6 months. You might read about a new trend in digital marketing, but how do you know it will work with your target demographic? Instead of investing the time to redesign your shopping cart without any knowledge on if the redesign will resonate with customers; consider investing your money into A/B resting. A/B Testing will truly help you understand how your user experience trends are changing and it’s impact the bottom line.
7. Produce content for the heck of it
Don’t be the company that wastes financial and time resources by producing content just for the sake of having content. Every piece of content should have a purpose and a goal. It should never be developed for the sake of “needing to get something out there”. It is better produce no content versus crappy content.
8. Invest in every digital platform
There are multiple digital programs that can be implemented into a digital marketing strategy, but which ones are the right ones for your target audience? Researching your strategy and programs to achieve those goals is key to a successful strategy.
9. Traditional marketing vs digital marketing
Often times, traditional marketing and digital marketing are treated like foes vs friends. They are not in competition of each other, but should be planned hand in hand to have the optimal results possible.
10. Lack of personalization
Digital marketing is a relationship. A sign of a successful marketing team is when you know your customer, their names, and their likes and dislikes. Blanketed marketing without personalizing content is an embarrassment to CMO with half a brain. Customers are not going to come to you…you have to go to them and make them feel like they are the only customer you are marketing to. Personalize your marketing and you will personalize your relationship with your customers.
