Top 10 Digital Marketing Mistakes & How to Fix Them

If your business isn’t quite going the way you want it to, you aren’t working with clients you love, or you aren’t making the kind of money you were hoping for… The problem could lie with your digital marketing. 

You can have the best offer. A beautiful website. The most powerful web host. But if you aren’t presenting it to your target audience in a way that catches their attention and makes them go “I want that!”, then you aren’t going to flourish the way you truly could. 

Here are the top 10 digital marketing mistakes… And it’s highly likely you’re making at least one of them. Check them out and rectify them in your business, and you may see everything change before your eyes. 

1. Lack of a Clear Marketing Strategy 

If you don’t have a clear, concise marketing strategy, how do you know who you’re marketing your company to and how you’re doing it? 

An effective strategy includes defining your target audience, setting marketing goals, planning your marketing campaigns, and measuring your success. Once you’ve got this foundation, it’s easier to know what’s working and what isn’t… And adapt your efforts along the way. 

How to Fix: Sit with a pro and come up with a clear marketing strategy. Then, follow it. 

2. Not Making the Most of Social Media Opportunities 

Everyone is on social media! If you aren’t making good use of it, you’re missing plenty of opportunities to do business, build trust with your followers, and ultimately, make sales. 

How to Fix: Get active on the platform your target market hangs out on. Post regularly, make sure it’s loaded with valuable, practical information, and engage with people on a regular basis, so they see the human behind the account! 

3. Overlooking the Importance of Mobile Optimization 

Did you know that more than half of your visitors are on mobile? If you haven’t optimized your website pages, blog posts, images, videos, and social media posts for mobile, you’ve got a high chance of losing visitors because your site is distorted on the phone. 

How to Fix: Do everything you can to optimize your website and social media posts for mobile. 

4. Tracking and Measuring Success Without Analytics 

Analytics can be intimidating, but they’re essential to your success online. Your analytics tell you what’s working and what isn’t, and knowing how to read them effectively can have a profoundly positive effect on your business. Google and YouTube are your friends! 

You can’t just measure your success by counting traffic, shares, likes, and comments. Analytics gives you a bigger picture. For example, you may have 1,000 likes, but if 130,000 people saw your post, is that really a good number? 

How to Fix: Set up tracking and analysis tools… And actually, review your metrics. Then, use these to make strategic decisions on how to change your marketing efforts. 

5. Calls-To-Action That Don’t Drive Clicks 

A boring CTA won’t necessarily drive people away, but if it’s not enticing enough, they won’t feel the urge to click. You need to lead them down the road with your content and help them to make the decision with your CTA. 

Make sure it explains to them exactly what to do and encourages them to do it in a bold and enticing way. Use short phrases that create excitement, anticipation, or a sense of interest. MAKE MORE MONEY NOW is a great example. 

How to Fix: Craft CTAs that are compelling. Use dynamic words like FREE, CLAIM, NOW, and so on. Make them stand out on the page by using colored buttons. 

6. Poor Email Marketing Strategy 

Don’t make the mistake of thinking email is dead! It could be the worst digital marketing mistake you make. An email list is full of warm leads—people who you already know are interested in what you offer. 

The key to email marketing is to provide a constant stream of valuable information. Share how-to’s, give insider tips and tricks, share real-life stories, and so on. This builds trust, which means they’re more likely to become a paying customer down the line. 

How to Fix: Create a free lead magnet and use it to build an email list. Share valuable content with your list. Sell subtly and not in every email. 

7. Not Leveraging SEO Where You Can 

SEO seems complicated, but it’s one of the best ways to gain visibility and increase your organic traffic. When someone searches for what you offer—eg. digital marketing—Google and social media find posts including that phrase. 

There’s more to it than that, but it’s important to start by making sure your website is optimized for SEO in all ways. You may want to do a bit of research on relevant keywords for your niche. 

How to Fix: Do some keyword research and SEO your site and socials, or get a pro to help you do it. 

8. Having Boring Content! 

If your content is boring, you can SEO it all you want and have the best CTAs possible. But people just aren’t going to buy from you if you’re boring them! Catch attention, engage the audience, and give them value. 

Storytelling is an extremely valuable digital marketing tool. Reate posts that people actually want to read, and you’ll be on the right track. 

How to Fix: Write your content with a storytelling slant that captures attention, keeps the reader engaged, and gives them practical value. 

9. Thinking You Don’t Need Video Marketing 

Visual content is a winner. Images are great, but a video has an advantage over pictures—it’s actively engaging. It keeps people hanging on. And the good news is that it’s actually not too difficult to do! 

Whether it’s you sitting in front of your webcam giving them tips on how to do XYZ, or a whiteboard animation you had done professionally, video always gets more interest than text or static images. 

How to Fix: Brainstorm how you can use video in your business. Decide if you want to show your face or be faceless. It’s a good idea to learn how to write video scripts if you want to do faceless videos. 

10. Failing to Test and Experiment 

You’ll never know if what you’re doing is working well or not until you test it. This is what A/B tests are for! What worked last year might not work this year. You need to test your marketing and experiment with new things often, or you’ll fall behind. 

How to Fix: Do A/B testing on whatever you can. Social media posts, emails, CTAs, colors. Find out what people like and work with that. 

Conclusion 

These are just a few digital marketing mistakes! There are more, but these are the ones we’ve seen most often. Whether you’re aiming to boost your WordPress website or get more engagement on social media, fix these mistakes, and you’ll see a difference.