How frequently do you hear businesses complain about their digital marketing efforts and not getting enough leads or sales from their digital campaigns?
“Digital marketing is a complete waste of time and money. I know it doesn’t work because I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars and received nothing in return.”
But, of course, frustration lurks behind that strong statement.
The disgruntled business owners understand that people are spending more and more time on their phones and laptops, and that the internet realm is crowded with like-minded firms all vying for attention. They are well aware that they must be online at all times. Despite this, their digital ads continue to fail — costing them money.
If your digital marketing campaign is not working as it should, here are some of the potential reasons why:
1. The wrong strategy.
The problem with many (if not all) businesses today is that they fail to have a clear understanding of what digital marketing is and more importantly, how it works. It’s the same as when you ask someone for directions: if you do not know your final destination, even the best navigator will be useless to you.
The problem with most companies today, however, is that they do not have a clear digital marketing strategy in place. In fact, 45% of companies don’t have a fully developed and effective digital marketing strategy.
If you want to make your digital marketing campaign work, you must first clarify why (and for whom) it is being done. What are the goals? What is the purpose? Only then can you set off on the right path.
And don’t forget, a digital marketing strategy is not just about having a Facebook page or establishing your company’s blog. A digital marketing strategy must be holistic and integrated to allow you to double up on your advantages in an online world where everything is at everyone’s fingertips. Thus harnessing the right strategies and partnering with the best digital marketing agency who can help you create a roadmap must be the top priorities.
2. Targeting the wrong audience.
Take this analogy: You are hungry, but because the fridge is filled with items that spoil quickly, you settle for a can of warm soda pop instead. Digital marketing is just like that too.
In order to achieve your business goals and meet your target market’s needs, you must first know who they are – who is your target market? What do they want? What problems do they have? Only then can you provide them with information, products and services that are relevant to them.
But how do you know who your target market is? There are many ways to figure it out. One way is by asking yourself this question: “If I were a consumer myself, what needs or wants would I have?”
You can also collaborate with the best digital marketing agency to help you leverage your marketing efforts and create progress that your brand or business deserves.
3. Improper budgeting.
If you don’t know how much money you have to work with, how are you going to make sure that all of your spending is within that budget?
A good rule of thumb is that the larger and more complicated a project is, the more time it should take. This is especially true when it comes to digital marketing.
The most common project which takes a longer time than expected is SEO optimization of a website as well as building up the social media accounts for that website. This is primarily due to keyword research – you need to make sure that your keyword strategy matches with what people are searching for on Google. This is something which can take a fair amount of time and research (but don’t worry, our writers are well aware of the latest SEO trends in
a) Content Writing
b) Ranking Factors
c) Link Building.
In addition to this, social media accounts linked to your website need the same attention and effort put into them. Creating a few posts and simply letting them sit there is one of the worst things you can do for your website. Google shows that users enjoy websites with active and responsive accounts, so it’s important to keep this in mind when developing content (and remember, quality comes before quantity). We have a list of social media post ideas for you if you are running out of ideas.
4. Not tracking the results.
The lack of objective data is another reason why digital marketing campaigns fail to perform. Many marketers use statistics to try and prove their campaigns are working, but these can be misleading as they only document the actual performance of the marketing campaign.
Numbers like visits and closed sales can be increased through other channels such as paid advertising or PPC. What you need is an objective measure of how well your digital ads are performing. The best way to do this is by tracking the source of the traffic you are getting from your campaign. If your digital marketing campaign is going well then there will be an increase in visits from organic sources such as search engines, online forums and referrals.
Evaluating how well a specific piece of content performed is also important. Do not focus on the number of hits a page gets. A high amount of visitors to a single page is not always good, this could be because it was poorly written or didn’t answer the question well. It’s important to have an ‘attraction’ factor that will cause customers to visit multiple pages and engage with your content more fully.
5. Failure to adapt.
Digital marketing and technology are changing constantly, thus it’s important that businesses keep up with these changes or risk getting left behind by their competitors! In addition, there are more products and services available today than ever before.
Consumers have a huge range of choices in any industry, so businesses need to compete hard and stand out from the crowd if they want to be successful in this increasingly competitive market!
It is not enough just to understand how digital marketing works. In order for it to succeed, you need your staff to be constantly up-to-date with the latest developments and research in order to adapt their methods accordingly.
Success depends on your ability to identify, understand and solve the problems of your target market quickly enough for them to notice and appreciate it. If you want to keep up with the rest of the pack, then you need a new approach – digital marketing. It’s not just your consumers who are in a hurry, but increasingly it’s the whole of the business world.
Takeaway
There is no shortcut to digital marketing success. You cannot expect immediate success simply by hiring a marketing manager and creating a social media page. And if you don’t track the results of your marketing activities, you’ll never know which ones are working and which ones aren’t.