Everybody knows how important digital marketing these days is. It is vital for attracting, convincing, converting, and retaining followers. Most business owners would agree that having a great strategy is a critical component of the digital marketing.
In this article we are going to discuss very common little mistakes that digital marketers do which need to be avoided. Some strategies just fetch short term results which are not that fruitful for a brand. Marketers need to adopt different approaches to stand out from the crowd.
Here is a list of some reasons why many strategies fail and what should be done instead of committing those trivial mistakes.
1. IT DOESN’T ADDRESS THE ISSUE AT HAND
Most of the digital marketing strategies are just a list of some simple actions which can be taken to improve your business’ digital presence. They are mostly short lived and leave no major impact. After a while they just become a piece of information drafted on a piece of paper. Most of all, they do not list or address to your major challenges and definitely not how to fix them.
SMART ALTERNATIVE
You must start by thoroughly evaluating your current state, by honestly listing down your strengths and weaknesses, your opportunities and threats. Now on the basis of your challenges and keeping in mind your opportunities and threats, form a strategy considering what needs to be done.
2. IT’S TOO COMPLICATED
Strategies with too many focus points and goal are far from any clarity, rather they create more ambiguity. It leads the business to channelize lighter efforts to every objective, instead of focusing properly on lesser number of goals. This makes the process quite complicated.
SMART ALTERNATIVE
When you list down your challenges, do not try to cater to all of them at once. Break them down into smaller tasks and focus on them bit by bit. Prioritize these tasks according to your organizational goals and start working on them on the basis of which one can deliver more impact results.
3. IT’S JUST A ‘SHOPPING LIST’ OF POTENTIAL TACTICS
You need to ask yourself whether you really have a strategy or just a random list of things to do. It surely is gonna keep every member of your team busy, but is that really what you want? Just to be busy? Or do you want to be productive? You need to foresee this well and manage your time efficiently to get obtain the desired results.
SMART ALTERNATIVE
Every marketing strategy may not fetch the same results for every kind of organization. A B2C organization may fetch a good number of clients by posting a great deal on Facebook but a B2B organization might not, they would have to focus their efforts on platforms like LinkedIn. Just allow yourself to focus on your biggest challenge and work on it properly.
4. IT’S ENTIRELY OUTSOURCED
It is no doubt that outsourcing your business’ digital marketing is a good idea, it is a good move to leave it to experts. But leaving it entirely up to them is also not a great idea, many projects handed over to experts too have the possibility of not coming out too well.
SMART ALTERNATIVE
Whenever you outsource a project, make sure you actively participate in it and not just leave it up to those experts and forget about it. Make sure you are around for important discussions, feedbacks and guidance. It will ensure that the combination of their expertise and your vision brings out the desired results.
5. IT DOESN’T HAVE MANAGEMENT BUY IN
If you are alone, it might not be that easy for you to take the idea off of the ground. It might not work well, if you do not have the involvement of the important people, like the management, the business owners or board. Even the best thought strategy needs help to be implemented in a perfect manner.
SMART ALTERNATIVE
It is important that the superiors you are reporting to realize the importance of every little effort of yours. You should be able to explain the reason behind your actions and the expected outcomes. Make them realize why those efforts of yours are crucial for the organization.
6. IT’S NOT ALIGNED WITH THE ORGANISATIONAL STRATEGY
The main goal of every business activity is to meet its ultimate organizational goal but often, this is not kept in mind. Many a times, the digital marketing strategy is framed without taking into consideration the organizational goals. Suppose the digital marketing strategy you framed focuses on gaining more customers but the current organizational goal is to retain the current customers, therefore, it won’t make any sense.
SMART ALTERNATIVE
When your digital marketing strategies are aligned with your management’s goals then they automatically back it up and it gets their support. It may seem quite obvious but is very essential. Just take the organizational goals into consideration while framing your strategies.
7. IT DOESN’T ADDRESS YOUR CAPACITY TO IMPLEMENT
Suppose you identified your challenges and the things you need to focus on and the things you need to avoid. You are also backed up by all the essential players of your company and your goal matches with the organizational goal and then you realize that the superb plan which you have cannot be implemented.
SMART ALTERNATIVE
Judge how realistic your plan and strategy is before trying to implement it. Also make sure that your expectations from the plan are realistic. The strategy’s effect will be directly proportional to the amount of investment made into it.
8. IT’S NOT MEASURABLE
Having too many strategies create goals which are not possible to measure. You might have a goal to be the best at something but how will you create the parameter to measure if you reached your goal or not.
SMART ALTERNATIVE
Set real and feasible targets which you can report against. The board will definitely be supportive of your plans even if they are not sure of it. The numbers, facts and figures must be measurable, feasible, achievable and rationale.
9. THE STRATEGY IS CLEAR BUT THE PLAN IS VAGUE
You really do not have a goal if you do not have a well thought of plan to achieve it. You might have a goal, gather all the resources to accomplish it, have the support of all the important people and you still might end up not accomplishing the goal if you do not follow a proper plan, or know exactly which path you are going to follow to reach your goal.
SMART ALTERNATIVE
Every detail of your plan should be precise. Every member of the team should be aware of what they are doing, the exact dates of execution, the required skill set or resources, what support do they need from you etc.
10. IT’S TOO FUTURE-FOCUSED
Digital media is a very dynamic field and hence it is very difficult to predict what trends may come up or how the scenario may change in the future. New platforms pop up, organizations may change their policies, new platforms may pop up, even the ruling government might change and hence will the regulations. So if you plan a strategy which might start working after two or more than two years, you might even reach to the conclusion that your strategy is no longer relevant in that situation.
SMART ALTERNATIVE
It might not be a popular opinion but a digital marketing strategy should not focus on future any more than three years. Stressing on a strategy longer than three years is nothing but a guesswork. It’s not being smart, it is just hoping blindly. Keep your focus between 18 months to three years ahead for framing your strategy.
How do you plan your digital marketing strategy for business? What are the things that you keep in mind during the planning procedure?