As consumers continue to make the switch to online buying, businesses are spending more time and money focusing on the quality of their website and digital marketing strategy. However, a large portion of businesses are making major mistakes in their online strategy.
With online marketing on the rise, here are the top five online marketing mistakes to avoid for an optimised strategy that helps your business stand out from the competition.
Failing to know your audience
Failing to understand your customer demographic will mean wasting time and money on marketing strategies that aren’t reaching or engaging your business’s target audience. In order to craft high-performing online marketing strategies, businesses need to understand multiple facets of their customers – including age, income, customer needs and demand. With expert knowledge of a business’s customer base, marketing strategies on websites and social media platforms can reach a better, more-focused range of the buyer population, increasing click-through rate (CTRs) and return on investment (ROI).
Not identifying the best niche for your business
With a comprehensive understanding of your business’s online consumer audience, you need to next identify your niche audience. Businesses receive a wide range of customers but, surprisingly only a small portion of those make up the largest percentage of the business’s profits. Due to this, identifying niche audiences will help your business’s marketing strategy perform much more effectively. Failing to understand your business’s niche causes missed revenue opportunity as well as the ability for competitors to swoop in on a prime area of your market audience.
Not remarketing to encourage sale conversion
Does your business follow-up with real-life customers? Of course! It’s an extremely effective way to solidify sales and improve profits. So, why not do the same for online marketing! Remarketing is an affordable yet effective way to target consumers who have previously visited your page as a follow-up to help encourage sale conversion. Consumers often don’t make purchases the first time they visit a page. They often take time to shop around and look at your business’s competitors. Failing to remarket could mean a loss for your business and a gain for your competitors. However, by following-up with remarketing, businesses will increase brand awareness, engage their audience and improve sale conversion rates.
Failing to track metrics for an optimised business
Tracking metrics, for example, key performance indicators (KPIs), help to optimise your business’s online marketing strategy. By tracking, monitoring and analysing past and current aspects of your business, you can accurately understand and improve your business to run as efficiently as possible. Companies that fail to track their metrics won’t have a deep understanding of the success or failures of their marketing strategies. Tracking metrics is a great tool to optimise your online marketing to be more effective and successful while identifying problems you may have not noticed otherwise.
How is your business perceived by your target audience?
With a highly competitive online market, businesses often feel pressured to sell, sell and sell again. Focusing only on selling and not giving, can be detrimental to how your target audience perceives your business, causing lower sale conversion rates. Giving consumers the chance to sample a product or service before making a choice is a great way to spread your brand’s awareness and get some new happy customers as well. Giving great customers service helps increase profits by encouraging repeat clients who recommend your business to friends and family. Finding the perfect balance between sell and give, will give your business an optimised selling environment.
Online marketing can seem daunting but by avoiding these five major mistakes, your business can stay one step ahead of the competitors.
Lucas Cook, Founder and CEO, Co Media
