7 Digital Marketing Mistakes of 2018

By Stephanie McCredie
We have been given a phenomenal opportunity to engage with consumers and influence their decisions through digital technology. However, as new technologies are evolving at such a fast speed, digital marketing is constantly being pulled into an ever-changing and developing arena. Leveraging the ‘right’ digital strategies is more vital than ever in order to reach and engage with the right people through your marketing campaigns.

Digital marketing mistakes can be extremely costly for your organisation. Here are some digital marketing mistakes of 2018 you could be avoiding:

1. Neglecting mobile users.
Mobile is a dominant platform for digital media. The statistics portal, Statista, report that the percentage of global web pages served to mobile phones in 2018 was 52.2 percent. With more than half of all global web pages being served to mobile phones, Google released a new mobile-first algorithm update early in 2018 when they decided that websites not optimized for mobile users would suffer the consequences in search results. When a website is ‘responsive’ the design of a page responds to the size of the user’s screen but Google is also concerned about your website’s loading speed. Time spent optimising your images and code is, therefore, time well spent.

2. Avoiding social media.
Whether we like it or not, social media is where you need to hang out in order to build brand development. People hang out on social media and being there with them will help increase your reach. Social media has a way of personalising your interaction with consumers thus building their trust in your organisation.

3. Failing to utilise video.
Videos are engaging and help capture the attention of your proposed audience. Videos also contribute to your high-quality content and are just as valuable as your written content, images and infographics. When used and planned correctly, videos can play a major part in your SEO. They increase the time spent by visitors on your site which shows search engines that your site has quality content. Ensure you optimise your video on YouTube by writing good titles and descriptions and add links where appropriate, then Promote your videos through your social media channels.

4. Keeping content brief.
Google loves content-rich pages. Years ago we were encouraged to keep content brief, summarised and to-the-point so not to lose the attention of the reader. In digital marketing, we know that high quality, content-rich pages is what Google is looking for to prove you are an authority in your field which, in turn, increases your ranking in the SERPs.

5. Not using testimonials and reviews.
Testimonials and customer reviews are powerful in building credibility and trust. Use these throughout all your digital marketing channels, including your website, social media, online advertisements and marketing emails. Your customer’s opinions of their experience with your organisation are powerful in helping you gain new clients.

6. Set it & forget it attitude.
Gone are the days of creating a piece of marketing literature and using that for the next five years! Websites need to stay fresh and updated, relevant to your season. All your digital marketing content should be revised and tweaked regularly as part of your SEO strategy.

7. Failing to measure ROI.
If you are responsible for your digital marketing budget, you are responsible for measuring the return on each of your marketing strategies. You may find you are blindly throwing money at a strategy that once produced a positive ROI that is now dead. Stay with what is working and tweak or abandon what is not. Google Analytics provides a fantastic platform to track your digital marketing traffic and provides insights you can use to improve your ROI.

By correcting these seven digital marketing mistakes you can drastically improve your online brand visibility, follower engagement, and ultimately, drive new clients to your company.
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Back to newsletter – December 2018