Background: A sound digital marketing strategy is an important guiding tool for your business. In an ever-evolving digital landscape, it is important to create a tailor-made strategy based on research. Digital Marketer, Thunga MM lists out the common mistakes made while creating a digital marketing strategy.

Digital technologies evolve so rapidly that what worked yesterday may have no impact at all today or in the future. This holds true for digital marketing plans that cannot be based on outdated concepts or personal beliefs. If you are creating a digital marketing strategy for your business, then you need to follow the right tactics and also avoid mistakes that could impede success. Let us take a look at the common mistakes made during the conceptualisation of digital marketing tactics.

1. No research

What worked for one client business will work for another is an easy way out to avoid painstaking research but in doing so, you will simply not derive any meaningful results. Unfortunately, many digital marketing agencies go down this path. Choose digital marketing agencies that create a unique, custom and tailored digital marketing plan. The plan should be based on extreme research and analytics that cover target consumers, geographic region, competition, the client and their products, in addition to channels that can prove to be the most effective for this specific brief.

Also read: Market research: The key to building a great startup

2. Letting the top boss dictate policy

Many top managers have this attitude: “I am the boss and know better.” Bowing to this kind of pressure will impact the performance of the digital marketing implementation and the plan. It is for you to convince your boss that the digital marketing agency you choose knows better what works in the short term and the long term. It helps to have solid data to back up your arguments and the digital marketing agency should provide one.

3. No SEO or minimal SEO

SEO, you assume, does not quite deliver the expected results. So what if a web page ranks high if it cannot deliver convertible traffic? SEO still works and you ignore it at your peril. It is a part of digital marketing and requires modern tactics, not outdated practices like keyword stuffing. It does require hard work to create meaningful content that appeals to target audiences and propagating it in the right channels to achieve results. The digital marketing agency should be proficient in this area.

4. Ignoring social media's useful advantages

One may use social media and focus on creating followers and driving sales. However, social media also delivers a wealth of data on each participant and it helps to delve deeper into this aspect. Another useful strategy on social channels is to listen to feedback as a way to deliver better services and to improve products apart from building relationships. When you choose a digital marketing agency, make sure that the plan incorporates social media activities too. 

Also read: Expert social media tips for the modern entrepreneur

5. Believing that a short campaign is all you need

In order to achieve success, you need to have a long-term digital marketing strategy in place designed by digital marketing experts. You may assume that a short-term campaign will get you the desired results. In most cases, it does not. Some activities like SEO and social media have to be kept going on a long-term basis to derive results. It does involve costs, but you get results and you will be spending from earnings. You could save on the cost by scaling campaigns.

6. Doing without paid campaigns

PPC campaigns, it is observed, often do not deliver desired results but it does work if properly implemented. It should never be ignored because you get fast results from a well-thought-out and implemented PPC campaign.

The best thing to do is to collaborate with an established digital marketing firm and let them handle it while you focus on your core activities. 

Good luck!

Also read: Marketing ideas for business owners on a shoestring budget

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