It can be challenging to navigate the world of digital marketing, in an ever-evolving landscape of do’s and don’ts. What worked just last year may not necessarily be the tactic you need to approach your digital marketing efforts today.

Search engines and social media platforms update and change their algorithms almost constantly. It is up to the digital marketer to stay current. Digital marketing is often a rapid paced industry. Even the experts may find themselves getting tripped up while trying to keep up.

We’ve compiled a list of what we see as some of the most commonly made digital marketing mistakes. But don’t worry, we’ve also got a few tips to help you avoid making these mistakes.

Failing to set marketing goals

What are your goals for your digital marketing efforts? Are you looking to establish and build brand recognition? Perhaps you are looking to inform and educate? Or are you looking to purely boost your business sales and growth?

If you’ve yet to establish your goals, you should delay setting your digital marketing campaigns into action. Without them you’ll simply be moving in circles, without true direction.

Tips Section: There are a few things you can do in order to define and refine your goals.

1.) Write down the top 5 goals that you are looking to accomplish with your marketing strategy.

2.) For each goal that you’ve jotted down, you can now work on creating steps. You can also develop course of action that will help you to achieve your goals.

3.) If you need actionable goals, start simple. Don’t overthink it and make things more difficult than they need to be.

Focusing on the hard versus soft sell

Traditional marketing and digital marketing strategies are very similar in some respects. One of the key differences between the two is that traditional marketing typically favours the hard sell, through aggressive advertising and sales tactics. Digital marketing is best served by favouring the soft sell.

Just what is the soft sell? It’s a subtle approach, persuasive and definitely low-pressure. A business that has for so long been focused on the traditional marketing strategy may forget one of the keys to online marketing. This should be a focus on their brand, their story, their mission and their business philosophy. This focus is the soft sell. It’s a focus on establishing and building relationships and trust with their potential customers. Versus simply advertising a product or a service.

Tips Section: There are several steps that you can take in order to master the soft sell approach.

1.) Post about your company culture, feature your team members on your web page and on your social media accounts.

2.) Publish inspirational and uplifting content, along with informative industry updates. These little nuggets of wisdom or pep talks can appeal to those who are following your business online.

3.) Consider working with social media influencers, to promote your brand, your products and your services. Do your due diligence and be sure you are only working with reputable people who can best represent your business.

4.) Ensure that you are producing really informative blog content, on a consistent basis. Relevant content can help you to build customer loyalty. It can also encourage engagement with those interested in your products and services.

Targeting an incorrect audience

Targeting the wrong audience certainly isn’t an issue that is faced exclusively by digital marketers. However, it’s a mistake that can prove to be very costly. Every part of your digital marketing effort should resonate with your target audience. From the layout of your website to your social media pay-per-click campaigns, your audience should connect with your business.

Tips Section: There are several steps that you can take to ensure you’re targeting the right audience.

1.) It’s recommended that businesses invest efforts into ensuring that their website, their social media platforms and other digital marketing efforts appeal to their target market. Education facilities should consult with marketing experts who specialise in marketing for the education field. The same holds true for the legal and medical industries.

2.) Don’t invest in any pay-per-click campaigns unless you’ve consulted with someone who can assure you that your advertisements will be reaching your target audience. Social media platforms are notorious for making it a snap to set up campaigns. But neglecting to demonstrate the ROI that you can expect.

Running too many sales and promotions

You certainly want to remain competitive in your marketing, and sales and promotions can definitely help you to accomplish this. However, it can cheapen the true value of a sale and promotion. There’s no incentive for someone to schedule a procedure or buy your products today if they know they can do it at a later date for the same price.

Tips Section: There are a few steps that you can take in order to boost your sales and promotions the right way.

1.) Be sure that any sales or promotions or other special offers have an expiration date on them. When you market these offers, be sure to mention that this is a limited time offer, with a defined expiration date.

2.) Promote your specials using your email lists, along with a social media push that will create awareness.

3.) Try to limit your sales and promotions to special calendar events or to the start of a new season. As an example, if you specialise in tummy tucks then it’s a great marketing plan to focus your efforts on getting spring and summer body ready.

Developing and publishing really poor content

Content that is original, informative and even a little bit entertaining is a vital part of each digital marketing strategy. The content that you publish will allow you to establish your place as an authority in the field that you are in. Solid content is what drives web traffic to your website through SEO. Excellent content means the search engines are more likely to rank your website higher on their list of search results. This can also offer the impression that your website is much more trustworthy over your competitors.

Tips Section: There are a few things that you can do in order to ensure that you have great content.

1.) Consult with a marketing team that can analyse your current content, traffic behaviours. They can also provide suggestions to help improve your content.

2.) Hire a writer that can write content, blog posts, articles and social media pieces that speak with your brand’s voice.

3.) Be sure to link to your own content within your pages and blog posts. This makes easier for readers to find relevant information. It also demonstrates to search engine crawlers which pages on your website should be considered the most important.

Forgetting about mobile users

Just about every person you know has a smartphone or uses a tablet device to search and browse for information. Certainly there are still many who use their desktop or laptop to find what they’re looking for. It’s an easy mistake to forget to optimise your website for mobile users.

Someone using a mobile browser may become frustrated if the website isn’t loading fast and isn’t mobile friendly.

Tips Section: Optimising your website for mobile users can potentially see your web traffic increase drastically.

1.) Work with a website design and development team that can ensure your website is optimised for all users.

2.) Boost your website’s loading speed by reducing the size of your images and with the minification of your code.

3.) Ensure that your layout is adjusted for mobile screens. Avoid the use of annoying pop-ups.

Neglecting to interact on social media

Your social media accounts should be an important part of your overall digital marketing strategy. Most of us interact on one or more social media platforms each and every day. It’s important that businesses keep up with their social media accounts. You shouldn’t necessarily spend all day monitoring the comments on your posts and updates. But you should ensure that you aren’t ignoring them completely.

Tips Section: Keeping your social media accounts interactive and responsive can help to build a relationship with your audience.

1.) Respond to questions about your products and services within regular businesses hours. But don’t wait longer than a few hours after the post has been made.

2.) Don’t respond to trolls or those who are simply looking to cause a ruckus on your professional pages. Simply remove them in the most professional of manners.

3.) Take private conversations to email or a phone call, in order to protect your clients and patients.

Digital marketing can help your business to see the successes that you are working so hard to achieve. You may not be able to see instant results, of course. With a good marketing strategy and actionable goals, you’ll be able to see the growth and results that you are looking for. Remain consistent and focused on what you are looking to achieve.