Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2022

The digital space is constantly evolving and at the same time, it is becoming more and more important in everyone’s everyday lives. That makes the digital marketing strategy you use essential to your success on and offline. You need to be able to attract your target audience in a crowded digital space. So how do you avoid the common pitfalls that others struggle with and achieve a viable digital marketing strategy? 

A great place to start is avoiding the ten deadly sins of digital marketing. If you can stop yourself from making these mistakes then your path to digital marketing success will be clear! 

#1 Neglecting to use Social Proof

Firstly, what is social proof? Basically, it means that when people shop, they look for reviews, recommendations, and ways that others have used a product before making their decision.

The use of social proof is essential for the success of any business. It helps to increase conversions, improve click-through rates, and drive traffic.

Businesses often do not center on their website testimonials, reviews, or other forms of social proof. Many businesses feel cheesy or like they are bragging when they highlight these positives. However, this is a major mistake! Customers want reassurance from previous shoppers to ensure that they are making the right decision. The need to build trust before deciding on which product or service to buy. 

That is why it is so important for new viewers to view reviews and testimonials. These can increase confidence in your brand. Both reviews and case studies are amazing for conversion and customer retention! Make sure to include them in your marketing strategy. 

You can see some examples of Accessily case studies here to see what types of content would add value to prospective customers: Guest Post Campaign Case Study, Quora Case Study

#2 Not Using a Pre-Planned Content Strategy

Content is everything in marketing. If you don’t have engaging and interesting content you have no hope to connect with your audience. It is essential to have a thoughtful content strategy that will be able to provide value to the audience. 

There are many ways to create valuable content, from guest posting, writing a blog on your site, creating videos, and writing posts on social media channels. All of these activities when done correctly improve your reputation and brand image. 

The most important thing when it comes to content is making sure that you have a clear and cohesive message across platforms and that you publish content on a consistent schedule. If you are sharing it sporadically it will not have a meaningful impact. 

#3. Using Clickbait

Many digital marketers, in order to boost customer engagement, tend to invest in content that is clickbait in nature. Clickbait is content that puts a clever spin on words to make it sound very appealing to customers, without holding any real value for them. 

For example, if you use phrases such as ‘you will never believe what happened next even though the content inside is very much believable by the average joe, you are using clickbait to lure audiences to your page. Such practices tarnish your brand’s reputation and credibility.

Instead, focus on creating content that delivers actual value to your target audience, and tell your audience exactly what they can expect to find inside the article. That way, your viewers will never be disappointed with the actual content inside, eventually becoming regular visitors due to the availability of good quality content.

#4 Avoiding Social Media

Social media is essential to any company! That is because it is one of the best ways to build relationships with customers and potential customers.

You can utilize social media to accomplish many things from advertising to customer service to content marketing.

If you share relevant and interesting content you can reach a wide audience that can convert easily to customers. You also need to focus on the right social media channels for your business. You can start planning your social media calendar with our template, and you can include guest posts into your content strategy. You can also get social media shout-outs on the Accessily marketplace, on Instagram, Tik Tok or Quora! 

#5 Not Defining Your Target Audience

It’s not worth digital marketing to as many people as possible. A better way is to focus your digital marketing on a more focused target market – this will give you a higher number of qualified leads.

It is very important to identify the right customer when digital marketing your product or service. Who are they? What are their demographics? What are their needs and pain points? 

 Having an understanding of your customer can give you a better chance at reaching them with customized content and then turning them into customers.

#6 Ignoring the Competition

Ignoring the competition is a common digital marketing mistake that many companies make.

It is important for us to understand what they have been doing and how we can do better than them. 

Figure out what makes your brand special and highlight it on your site. Your website should make it clear to visitors what sets you apart from the other brands. You can do this with charts or blog posts. You can also make sure to fill in gaps if your competition advertises in a way that you don’t. 

Related Content: Taboola vs. Accessily, Guest Post Service vs Accessily, Guest Post Outreach vs Accessily

#7  Only Spending on Paid Advertisements

Digital marketers tend to spend the entirety of their digital marketing budget on paid advertisements, leaving behind little to no budget for other, possibly more effective, digital marketing strategies.

Instead, as a digital marketer, you should only spend on paid advertisements if you are interested in generating more visibility for your brand. If your brand already has an organic following that is gradually increasing with time, you might be better off investing in other digital marketing tools, such as the development of high-quality content or spending on SEO. You can see which marketing channels have the best ROI here. 

#8 Not Being Data-Driven

If you are still making your digital marketing decisions according to your gut then you are missing out! 

You need to analyze your data to make meaningful decisions about your marketing’s next step. If you have current campaigns are they showing results? 

The biggest advantage that you have in digital marketing over conventional marketing is the kind of personalization you can do and the amount of data that you can collect to measure your campaign. Make sure you use the power of data to boost your marketing.

#9 Not Testing Enough

This is related to the mistake of not using data to make decisions. You can’t use data that you don’t have. If you don’t measure your marketing campaigns then you don’t really know what is working and what is not. 

You can do A/B testing for email marketing for example. You can also track the metrics for conversion on running ads in different places. All of these activities will provide valuable data that can inform your decisions on where to continue spending on marketing and where to cut back. 

#10 Ignoring SEO

Ignoring SEO today can be one of the biggest mistakes a marketer can make. 

  • 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
  • 89% of online purchasers used SERPs to make their decision 

These numbers paint the picture of how important SEO is to a customer journey. Basically, without optimizing search you will be losing tons of potential traffic and sales. 

Focusing on SEO will give you more visibility with time reduce your marketing costs to get similar results. It is basically a win-win! 

SEO Resources: Technical SEO, Powerful Backlinks for SEO, SEO for Small Businesses, Local SEO 

Take-Aways:

This list is a helpful guide to the easiest digital marketing mistakes to make and how to avoid them. If you create a solid plan and focus on investing in the right resources then your chances to succeed in promoting your business skyrocket! Make sure to be thoughtful and purposeful in your digital marketing decisions. 

Media Planning 101: Create the Perfect Content Calender

What is Media Planning? 

Media planning is the process of choosing where, when, and how a business will advertise to its target customers, in order to secure their engagement and to boost ROI. Media planning has many factors and considerations that need to be taken into account and it is not necessarily easy! 

A media plan details what kind of media you will create, from social media to blog posts. You determine the publishing schedule and the best channels during this process so that you can maximize success in engaging with and converting your audience. Media plans vary in complexity, they can align with larger company initiatives and campaigns, following along with pre-approved messaging and content. Other media plans are separate strategies that focus on how to utilize most effectively certain media mediums like articles, podcasts or videos to connect with followers and customers.

In order to help you get it right, this post will bring together all the information you need to create the perfect media calendar for your business. We’ll walk you through each step of the media planning process to help you tackle any media planning issues you might encounter. 

Elements of Media Planning

Media planning deals with strategizing in advance for content creation and distribution. This includes: 

  1. Developing an understanding of your target audience and buyer persona so that you can create relevant content for them 
  2. Picking which media channels to use 
  3. Deciding on the timing and frequency of the media and content that you distribute
  4. Staying on top of the latest media trends to stay interesting 
  5. Planning your budget for all of the content 
  6.  Deciding who will create, publish, and share high-quality and engaging media content that you want
  7. Keeping track of the media to measure the success of your media planning process

Now that we’ve discussed the overview of the media planning process, let’s dive into the specific steps in the media planning process. 

Media Planning Process

  • Conduct market research.
  • Establish your media planning goals. 
  • Create your media plan. 
  • Implement your media plan.
  • Evaluate your success.

1. Conduct market research.

The first thing you’ll want to do when developing your media planning process is conduct market research. Market research will allow you to tailor the content you create and the media plan you implement to your target audience and customers. No

Start by creating (if you haven’t already) and studying your buyer personas as well as developing an understanding of who your target audience and current customers are.

With this information, you can determine what media will reach, resonate with, and convert your audience. Additionally, it’ll help you decide what platforms and channels through which to share your content.

2. State your media planning objective.

When developing your media plan, keep a goal (or a few) in mind to help you effectively navigate the process. Moreover, goals can help you know what content types and platforms you can say “no” to.

Here are some examples of media planning objectives you might have:

  • Bolster collaboration across creative teams while creating and sharing media.
  • Improve media distribution timeline to ensure our content is shared while it is still trendy and relevant 

For instance, say you’re looking to create a media plan for your Quora, Tik Tok, and  Instagram social content. Your objective may be to streamline the content creation process in a timely fashion and then schedule posts on both platforms in advance. This way, you ensure your posts are relevant to your audience so you can boost engagement and stay top of mind.

Related Posts: Quora Guest Posting Case Study, Influencer Generated Content, Content Marketing for Small Businesses 

3. Make Your Media Plan 

Now it’s time to finally create your media plan. You need to coordinate your entire team so that the research you did gets executed in the best way. To do this you need to outline your strategy into a media plan document. This document will enable your team to all be on the same page and understand everyone’s individual responsibilities.  

The best way to organize your document is using specific media planning templates. There are a lot of different templates available for different media and business types. That means you should take care to choose a template that suits your business and needs. The ultimate media planning template that you choose will be unique to your business. You should be bold and test templates, you can even combine different templates to see what works! 

For example, if your business is looking to create a media plan for your Instagram and Tik Tok social media, you might choose to implement a social media calendar template that focuses on video content. 

This type of template will help you coordinate your content across both channels, boost engagement, and improve productivity among your team members — and therefore, achieve the objective you set in step two.

Here are is our custom social media planning template, it’s the perfect place to start! 

You can customize it however you need to! Add and remove social channels, add columns for other metrics you want to monitor, etc. 

4. Implement your media plan.

Ensure all parties who should be aware of the plan have the necessary details to help you execute accordingly. You can do this by assigning tasks on your work app like Slack or Monday, or over email whatever your organization uses! 

To get a better understanding of what I mean, let’s refer back to our example in the above step about your social media plan for Facebook and Instagram.

If you implement a social media calendar template as part of your media plan, ensure everyone who will be working on or creating the content and publication schedule for both platforms has access to it. In addition, make sure that they are all aware of deadlines for the content they are accountable for. 

5. Evaluate your success.

Whether your media plan revolves around individual posts on Tik Tok or a longer-term company plan, be sure to measure the metrics to evaluate success! 

Make sure you address important questions like: 

  • Did this media plan meet our stated objective/goal 
  •  Did the media planning templates support our process? 
  • What did we do that added value to our media creation and publication processes?
  • What can we change to improve for the future?

When you reflect you should keep in mind your business’s specific goals regarding your media and content. You can consider if the teams who create the media work effectively. You can also look at whether you were able to boost conversions, engagements, revenue, etc. 

Media Planning Strategy Bonus Tips 

TopTip: Media Planning Budget

Don’t forget to think critically about your media budget. You will need to understand what funds you have to work with and how to best utilize them for the best ROI. You can check out our article on the best channels for marketing ROI here to help. 

You need to set this budget before you start researching platforms and creating content. You don’t want to start formulating a campaign that you can’t afford down the road. If you want to incorporate guest posts on blogs or social channels, Accessily is a great place to start. You can get individual posts in our marketplace or set up a campaign with whatever budget fits your plan. 

Top Tip: Media Planning Messaging

You don’t have to have your media content all written in advance, however, it is important to decide on a theme and message for your plan.  When you establish the main themes from the onset you will have a cohesive content strategy. 

These messaging points will come from your audience research and may also influence what content types and platforms you decide to focus on!

Finalizing Your Media Planning 

Spoiler alert: nothing is final

Digital trends and social media evolve quickly and constantly! New networks emerge others go through demographic shifts. For example, Facebook is nowhere near as trendy as it once was and Tik Tok is exploding! 

All of this means that your strategy should be a living document that you review and adjust as needed. Refer to it often to stay on track, but don’t be afraid to make changes so that it better reflects new goals, tools, or plans.

When you update your media planning strategy, make sure to let everyone on your team know. If you plan well and adjust often you are set up for success!