Digital marketing is a vital part in any business or brand nowadays, it is necessary to give it the importance it needs, but like any marketing strategy, it is necessary to correctly execute it in order to make the most of it. But, how do you know what are the errors that could affect your methods of online marketing? Well, today I bring you a list of some of the branding and marketing mistakes to avoid in order to success in the digital world.

Mistake number 1: Not having an audience target.

In marketing the audience is everything. One of the main mistakes that many digital marketing strategies have is not being aware of their target. This makes campaigns fail because they don’t have the appropriate impact for the reached people. 

• How to avoid it:  Analyze your audience. Study the type of person that follows you, their age, current trends in the market (you have to be careful with this, I will explain it later), and study which messages your audience responds most actively. Having a type of target helps you to better guide your campaign, producing better results and ensuring that people will see it and feel attracted by your message / product / service.

Mistake number 2: Skipping data analysis

How can you tell if you are doing things right or wrong if you don’t analyze the data of your marketing strategy? Leaving aside analytics is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make, since you couldn’t identify when to continue or when to stop promoting a type of campaign or strategy.

• How to avoid it: If you don’t have time to read the data daily or weekly, you can hire a professional data analysis service, the investment is really worth it. Identify which trends make your numbers grow, analyze the keywords of the moment, what is your audience target interested in, and what messages or campaigns most people respond to. All this will help immensely to perfect your marketing strategy.

Mistake number 3: Jumping into every new trend in the market

I know it is advisable to use the new trends in the market to get closer to your audience and become “viral”, but not all trends favor all types of campaigns. If you go around jumping in each new trend that appears in the market only because it gained popularity in two days you will fail, unless you’ve studied the trend enough.

• How to avoid it: Again, market research and data analysis are your best friends regarding this. Identify new trends, check if you can apply it to your brand, stay active but do not fall for everything new that appears without studying its behavior first.

Mistake number 4: Lack of interaction

It is necessary to emphasize this: good marketing strategies attract people, but without a good relationship with your audience, people will turn their backs on it eventually. Many companies believe that digital advertising is enough, but the public likes to feel noticed, that’s the only way to increase their attachment to the brand.

• How to avoid it: Interact with your audience in the social networks of your brand. If you do not have the time, hire community managers specialized in dealing with costumers. Listen to your audience, follow trends, respond to messages in a personalized way, make any kind of positive interaction and you will have a place in the heart of each follower.

Mistake number 5: Unclear or inexistent goals

There is no way to measure the efficiency or progress of a marketing strategy if the goals are not set. With one goal in mind, it is easier to focus your marketing strategy to meet it. If you have different goals that go in different directions, it will take you much longer to achieve any of it.

• How to avoid it: Before starting any type of advertising or strategy, state your goals. Be specific, be clear and be realistic, you must take into account what is possible to achieve and what isn’t. Not to have many goals at once will help you to avoid losing the focus of the advertising campaign.

Mistake number 6: Not using all the available marketing channels

According to wearesocial.com, of the 4,021 million people who use the internet worldwide, 3,196 million are active users of social networks. With this in mind it is impossible to ignore social networks in your digital marketing strategy. Using only the main website or blog is a very inefficient way to market today, so it is best to use all available channels.

• How to avoid it: It is recommended that your brand has accounts in every important social network. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snaptchat, all of them are channels with millions of people waiting for you, and if you add to that a very well designed website and a good interaction with your audience, you have a granted success.

Mistake number 7: Robotic attention

People identify when they are talking to a machine that responds automatically and when is a human behind the keyboard. A common mistake is to use the so-called “bots” that respond automatically and pretend to be humans. This reduces the sense of personalized attention and the public tends to believe that the brand does not care about them. Another mistake is to send general emails to deal with particular or specific issues.

• How to avoid it: There are different options when dealing with the public. Anyone would rather wait an extra time to receive a personalized response than to receive a robotic response immediately. If you really need to use a bot to answer, be honest and set the message with something like: “This is an automated response, leave your question / suggestion / comment and it will be answered as soon as possible”. This fits within the point of maintaining a good relationship with your audience.

Mistake number 8: Use a single strategy on all your platforms

The public that visits your Facebook page may not have the same interests as the public that visits your blog or your LinkedIn profile, so if you use the same strategy for all of the networks it will be a mess. If you don’t do a market study and analyze the information of your customers, you will be making a serious mistake that can cost you a lot of money.

• How to avoid it: The success and failure of your campaigns must be studied. Again it is necessary to read and analyze the data of your audience to know what they like and to meet the type of audience you have in each of the social networks, and that’s how you’ll find the right strategy to use. This also encourages people interested in all versions of your company to follow you on different social networks, thus increasing the success of your campaign.

Mistake number 9: Bad design (website, campaign, and social networks)

Design is an important part of any strategy, because the public has to be immediately attracted by your campaign, and the fastest way to the attention is through the sight. Sticky phrases and a cool name is not enough to achieve the success of your marketing strategy, overlook that design is a fundamental part. A good design can make the difference between someone who stops to read what you have to say and someone who keeps scrolling and passes your promotional image.

• How to avoid it: Hire a good graphic designer, better if it is a team of designers, to create a style and make your brand something internationally recognizable. Representative colors for your brand, logos, promotional images, and an attractive composition for your website will generate a positive response in people who run across your campaign.

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Everyone has made one of this mistakes when starting a new business campaign, but it is never too late to give a twist to the strategies and start doing things right. With all this in mind, there’s no reason to worry anymore, you’re set to gain success!