These days, business happens in a flash. For example, 60% of mobile users wait a maximum of 3 seconds for a page to load before taking their business elsewhere. With the digital space becoming increasingly important for future success, small mistakes anywhere in the engagement process can quickly turn a potential lead into a dead end.

But fear not! We’re here to tell you about five of the most common mistakes businesses make in digital marketing and give you better habits to cultivate instead.

1. Not Understanding Your Audience

You can have the best product or service in the world but presenting it with content that feels disconnected from your audience will still turn them off. Before you start marketing your business, take time to research the stories of the people you’re hoping to reach. What motivates them? What are the biggest factors that influence their day-to-day routines? Somewhere within your target market there are inconveniences to remove, tools to improve, joys to increase, and anxieties to relieve. Find out what those are, and you can build a more effective marketing campaign.

Once you have these insights, tailor your digital communication to resonate with your audience. Partner with relevant influencers and likeminded businesses. Post about topics that matter to your target group. Consider segmenting your email campaigns for higher engagement rates. Most importantly, take the time to plan your approach early in the process.

2. Not Prioritizing Earned Media

As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. Modern consumers are deeply familiar with traditional ads, and they don’t trust them as much as they did in the past. Earned media is an increasingly favored approach. It can mean a spotlight for your company in local media, an endorsement by a popular social media influencer, or simply an online review by a customer.

People respond well to recommendations from other individuals (as opposed to companies recommending themselves), so make sure to put some elbow grease into this part of your company’s digital marketing array.

3. Not Focusing on Quality

This probably won’t be the surprise of your life, but the Internet is big, and getting bigger all the time. We’re all drowned in information, a lot of it very similar, every time we’re online. This can make for an exhausting experience, so when we come across an article, video, or social media post that stands out, it’s all the more refreshing.

Try to tap into this phenomenon with your digital marketing. No one would rather read 20 hollow tweets a day from your company than two that are well-crafted. You don’t have to spend a ton to see results, but make a point of delivering content you’re proud of, and you’ll get a bigger bang for your buck.

4. Not Including Video

It’s a bitter pill to swallow for those of us in the blog writing game, but video is where it’s all happening these days. Somewhere around 80% of consumer online traffic now goes to video. Your customers are conditioned to prefer video to other forms of communication and failing to include some of this medium is a big no-no in the digital marketing of today.

Move some of your focus in this direction. Are there places to include videos in your existing marketing materials that you may not have noticed? Can you design new prongs for your campaigns that raise your company’s visibility through video? There will be overlap here with the other tips we’ve discussed so far: create an insightful, high-quality piece of earned media video marketing and you’ve covered all our points at once!

5. Not Allowing for Growth and Change

This applies to all marketing, not just the digital variety. Don’t let yourself get boxed in. Don’t let the conventional view of your business become a rigid limit that prevents your business from evolving. Some of the most effective marketing campaigns in history have come from taking the prevailing public attitude about a company and turning it on its head.

Give yourself freedom in your digital marketing to try new approaches and emphasize aspects of your operation you may not have before. While consistency is important for branding, you want to strike a balance between retaining what has worked before and embracing innovation to propel your business into the future.

For more business success tips and much more, visit our Smart Cents Business Success page.

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