5 mistakes that can cost you big in Digital marketing

Companies make mistakes, that’s a given, and it seems that when it come to digital marketing, they make a lot of them. You have probably read in the paper or online about these before, and more than likely experienced a few of them yourself.

While there is no way I could fit all these mistakes into one post, I’ve cut down to my top 5 mistakes in digital marketing in the hope you can avoid them:

1) Reliance on one channel

This one seems a bit obvious, but you may be surprised how many people fall into the trap. Marketing activity has always been perceived as a mix of channels, working together to create a network, targeting your entire demographic, and this is still the case with digital marketing.

Digital marketing is just one piece of the puzzle; you shouldn’t be placing all your hopes on it. Traditional marketing tactics are still effective ways of communicating your brand to your customers; digital marketing is simply a way to get your message across to another demographic.

That being said, once you are online, don’t become a one trick pony, you need to cover all the bases, simply setting up a Facebook page wont have your sale shooting through the roof, you need to analyse your target audience and create a digital marketing strategy that will reach these consumers, a mix of social platforms, digital advertising and even viral campaigns will deliver a much stronger result than one tactic alone.

Its important that you understand how each of your channels is used by consumers, treating your twitter account like your Facebook will doom you to fail, as will simply copying over your offline messages to online adds. Understand each channel you want to use and manage it properly.

2) Viral must be the way forward

After Cadburys series of well know viral adverts, companies the world over attempted to copy their success, only to find their campaigns did nearly nothing for their brand image.

The reason that these campaigns worked so well for Cadburys is that they are a world-renowned company; if you ask someone in the street what they sell, 99 out of 100 people will tell you “chocolate”. This resulted in Cadburys not needing to highlight their products, their beliefs, or their brand image, they simply made something interesting (who doesn’t want to watch a gorilla play drums to Phil Collins) filled the screen with the classic Cadburys purple and flashed their logo at the end, they didn’t want new customers, they wanted their old customers to remember them.

If you are not lucky enough to have the same level of brand awareness you need to stay clear of this type of advertising. Gillete made a brilliant viral ad (see below), but it had nothing to do with their company, resulting in may not even realising they saw an ad, this type of exposure doesn’t improve sales and you wouldn’t put it offline, so what’s the point using it online?

3) Mistaking increased traffic for success

Its only normal to try and find the positives when you spend your time on something, and that is where many people go wrong.

You put out a new add and the very next day the traffic to your website skyrockets, the campaign is obviously a huge success, right? In fact its not, traffic means nothing if you can’t convert it. Using metrics such as conversion, bounce rates, orders and revenue participation are much more effective ways of measuring the success of your campaigns.

If all you get is increased traffic, you are not doing the right thing, you have clearly connected with those you targeted, but you have targeted the wrong people.

4) Vision and Direction

Many forms of digital marketing have a much lower cost than traditional means, e.g. its cheaper to start a Twitter or Facebook account than it is to take out an add on TV or in the paper. This has inevitably given companies the chance to trial new messaging with less financial risk, which on paper seems to be a good thing.

However some companies get a little carried away with their new found freedom, trialling so many different messages through so many channels that this ends up damaging the brand as a whole, confusing their customers.

When you start a new campaign you need to look past just the financial risk, just because it cost you nothing to put something out on the web, doesn’t mean it cant cost you in the long run. All of your messages must retain a clear vision and direction, people have to know it’s from you and it needs to have a purpose (why will it make people buy).

You shouldn’t be looking at your ads as individual messages to a select number of customers, but as part of a strong and targeted marketing mix building your brand awareness and promoting your products. Your channels need to compliment each other so ensure your Social, SEO and CRM teams (among others) are aligned and working towards the same goal.

5) The move to mobile

Now here I’m not saying that you should not move to mobile, it’s a rapidly growing market and people more now than ever are using their mobile devices to browse and buy online, however you may be surprised how easy this is to get wrong.

The majority of issues here come from companies failing to make their entire sites responsive, which leads to frustration and lost sales.

Picture this:

You are on your morning commute, on your smartphone and see and email for a product (something you really don’t need, but want), you click through the link and are taken to a responsive landing page (so far so good), you select the item you want and click through to the checkout. Now you are faced with a page designed for a conventional browser, its difficult to select the right options and add your information and so you close the window, you decide you will do it later on when you get home (but you probably won’t).

The problem here is that the company did not understand the needs of the consumer and in so lost an impulse sale (and probably 100’s more) purely by focusing their attention on the wrong pages. It would have been much simpler for the customer to use a non-responsive page to add the item to the basket and go through to a responsive check out, they would have lost far less customers and made far more money.

The trick here is to know your customers and provide the user experience that they want, not the one you want.

A Beginners Guide to SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the way we optimise our pages to display higher in organic search on the web, this is differentiated from PPC from both the fact you must pay to display higher in PPC and will appear on a separate section of the results.

But how do companies perform better in SEO than other, this post aims to start you off on improving the SEO of your website.

Why is SEO marketing important

Firstly when done right SEO can improve the performance of your website immensely from a fairly small investment, by making your way to the top half of the first page of results your click through rate will increase exponentially. 

A SEO optimised site also allows people to find your site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you sell through your site then getting more people on your pages is the first step in increasing sales and revenue (Revenue that will increase disproportionately to your costs, achieving continually increased profits over time)

It is important to note that SEO is not the only way your company should be perusing customers, but instead an integral tool to be added into your marketing mix.

Understanding how search engines work

Search engines use programs called “bots” to navigate the web via links and process the information stored on web pages, this is known as crawling. These bots constantly move through the web repeatedly, picking up information and storing it.

The information is stored on huge hard drives in datacentres across the globe to be accessed when we perform a search with the company that collected the data.

When you enter a search term into an engine such as Google, the program does two things; firstly it identifies all of the information it has found on the web regarding your search term. Once this has been accomplished it will organise the information, listing the most relevant results first.

Over the years the process in which it does this has evolved from simply picking out search terms form pages to now test sites on 100s of different factors with varying weightings only known to the company that has programmed them.

The challenge for SEO executives is to find out which factors of their sites most effectively affect their rankings.

Designing for SEO: The Basics

As we have already talked about, SEO can be a greatly in depth subject and following this guide will not be enough to get you to the top of the search page. Below are a few tips on how to start of improving your SEO rankings, you can find pliantly of information online on how to improve further and I have left some links at the bottom of the page to get you on the right track.

Content

Bots handle pages very differently to humans, they cant see rich elements on your page and understand them the same way you will. Instead they handle HTML text most effectively and often overlook rich elements such as images (such as .png and .jpg files), videos ( such as flash files) and other applications (including search boxes).

To get around this, the correct HTML needs to be applied to these elements; adding alt tags to images and transcripts to videos provides the bots with the information they need to accurately track what is on your pages. On top of this you should ensure the pages are supplemented with relevant text. The idea here is to ensure that bots don’t miss what you are showing your customers

Meta Data

Meta data refers the specific sections of a page, for which you can add in information. This includes Meta tags, meta descriptions, meta titles and page headings.

All of these are easily editable and should be optimised with relevant keywords (which we will discuss later). 

Structure

Structure is key for SEO, without one that allows bots to move between the pages of your site, they will not find them. They do this through linking structures and to ensure you get the most out of your SEO you need to keep three things in mind: your pages link together in a relevant way, the text you use to link is related to where you send those that follow, your links must all eventually link up to your homepage for bots to be able to find them.

The image below shows how this can be done wrong:

 See how Page A (the homepage) has links to pages B and E, but none to C and D, this structure would result in bots never reaching pages C and D, hence not crawling through them and not picking up for the terms you have optimised those pages for.

Keywords

As we said above keywords are key to successful SEO strategies. Search engines store pages based on their usage of certain keywords and it important to know what keywords will provide you with not only the most clicks, but the most relevant clicks (There is no point ranking for air travel when you sell groceries).

This bring said, simply filling your site with keywords wont make you rank higher, bots are clever and gauge the relevance of you’re keywords, in fact, its commonly believed that by flooding your site with keywords actually does more damage than good.

To find out how to identify strong and relevant keywords, check out the links at the bottom of the post.

Tracking and Measurement

Tracking your success isn’t as easy as searching yourself and seeing where on the page you land, it can seem daunting to do more in depth testing but there are loads of analytics tools you can use, both paid and free.

Some of the bigger names, such as Omniture and Fireclick charge for use of their software but have a greater level of depth and customisation.  If this is out of your limits, programs such as Google Analytics and Yahoo! Web Analytics offer a great way to monitor your performance for free.

Key indexes to check on are visits and conversation directed to your site from specific search engines and search terms, over time you can tailor your efforts to focus on what has proven to be effective for you.

Useful Links

Why is SEO important?

A Beginners Guide

Great in depth guide to SEO

7 Tips To Improve Your Email Marketing Campaigns.

Email marketing is by no means a new practise, but with the rise of the smartphone the way in which consumers access their mail has changed. So how exactly do you make the most out of your email marketing campaigns? Here are my top 7 tips for just that.

1. Optimise 

Smart phones have opened consumers up to a whole new way of accessing their emails. it is now much more common to check through your email on the morning commute, rather than sitting at a desktop in the evening.

In order to account for this your emails, as well as the web pages you link to need to be mobile friendly or you can bed your messages will end up in most people trash folders within a few seconds. 

2. Don’t end up in the spam folder

This one seems pretty obvious, but its important to remember, however enticing  your email may be, the majority of consumers wont see it if it ends up in their junk or spam folder, really how often do you even check yours?

Of course this can be easier said than done, however the clever people at woorank 2014 have put together a great tutorial on how to stay out of the spam folder available here.

3. Start as you mean to go on

Welcome emails give a great opportunity to inspire your customers, and most customers will open that first email, especially if they receive it instantly after signing up.

With that in mind you should be ensuring two key ideas. Firstly that your emails send automatically as soon as someone signs up and secondly that your welcome email inspires your customers. If you manage to achieve this, your chance of being one of the few emails opened on the morning commute will increase significantly.

4. Get personal

Everyone likes to feel like they matter, so it goes without saying that making your customers feel like they have a personal relationship with your brand can only be a positive thing.

There are of course many ways to do this, but possibly the most effective way is to set up a preference centre for email correspondence. Let your customers choose how often they want to hear from you, and what they want to hear about, knowing they wont be sent something they will never be interested in goes a long way.

If you cant afford this type of investment, take smaller steps. Addressing your customers by name within the email gives a personal feel and not too hard a task to accomplish, the web is flooded with guides on how to do this on all kinds of email services including Gmail and Outlook. You could also send customers discounts and gift codes on their birthdays for that extra touch.

5. Content is King

Its all well and good talking about improving your open rates, but this doesn’t accomplish much if your emails don’t convert.

Ensure you are sending your customers well-constructed and relevant emails; ensure you have a strong subject line that accurately describes its content, that your call to actions are clearly visible and that you inspire some kind of urgency in your messaging, you want customers to buy now, if they close your email without purchasing right away, you risk your message being lost or forgotten until its too late.

If your budget allows for it, consider signing up with a email marketing consultancy such as Moveable Ink. By specialising, these guys can do things you could never dream of accomplishing on your own. Giving you options to display rich content directly in your emails such as website live feeds and video content removing steps in the purchase process.

6. Keep moving forward

Testing is crucial to keeping your email campaigns fresh. Without experimentation how can you ever expect to find the most effective ways of engaging your customers?

Of course you shouldn’t change too much at once, or even send your changes to all your customers. Be sensible, set up some A/B testing. Trial changes on 10-20% of your recipients, if something works increase the percentage of users, if it doesn’t try something new. No one wins big without risking anything.

7. Add personality

Your emails are the same as any other marketing tactic, but all to often email correspondence doesn’t have the same tone of voice and personality as the rest of a company’s marketing messages.

If your company’s voice is funny, make you emails funny, if it’s cheeky, make them cheeky. Every form of contact you have with your customers should be reinforcing your brand; consumers will instantly switch off if you lose your voice.

However, you still need to ensure you get your message across; you are selling your product as much as you are selling the company.

Check out some more email marketing tips from these great sites:

http://blog.woorank.com/2014/02/boost-email-open-rates/

http://www.bizreport.com/2012/06/how-to-get-out-of-the-spam-folder-and-increase-open-rates.html

http://www.businessbee.com/resources/marketing/email-marketing/how-to-increase-email-open-rates-with-a-strong-subject-line/

http://www.copyblogger.com/37-email-marketing-tips/

Top 5 tips for managing your companies twitter account.

A Lot of companies now run their own corporate twitter accounts, and a lot of them get it wrong, twitter is about engagement and if done correctly can result in an improved brand image and the possibility of increased profit.

But how exactly do you run a successful twitter account for your business? these are my top 5 tips to get you started:

1. You are not your company.

Posting for your company is not the same as posting for yourself. Your brand should have its own personality and voice; you need to ensure this it what comes across in your tweets.

Don’t take this too far however, millions of people can access what you post, come off as insensitive and you can grantee you will end up in the mornings papers for your slip up.

Source: Baer (2014)

And most importantly…….Never use ‘I’ in a post.

2. Get a Schedule

Scheduling your tweets is a great way to keep up your share of voice, it allows you to tweet when your not at the office or even just when you are busy, no more logging on from home to spread the word about you next sale.

Websites such as TweetDeck, HootSuite and CoTweet all work well for scheduling tweets, they also allow you to keep en eye on multiple hash tag feeds so you know exactly who is talking about you, or even your rivals.

However, make sure you don’t schedule anything that’s going to cause a storm while you are offline, corporate twitter pages are a hub for conversation, don’t leave your followers without answers.

Be professional

Twitter is a hot bed for trolls and arguments ensure you don’t get caught up in any of this, twitter rows often hit the headlines causing bad publicity for your company.

If your following is growing, consider starting up a spate account for complaints and comments, managed by your customer service teams, this not only keeps negative comments and long conversations off of your main page, but also allows for quicker responses to these issues, keeping your customers happier.

The web is also full of the many mistakes made by companies on their social accounts, the most common of these is administrators sending tweets intended for their personal account.

Source: Baer, J. (2014)

If this slip up happens to you, ensure you are prepared, the rouge tweet needs to be removed as quickly as possible, but you can’t just sweep it under the rug, you can guarantee one of your followers has already screen capped the mistake and posted it to their own feed. Stay calm and post a retraction, if your company voice allows for it, add some humour and you can change a disaster into something your followers will remember positively.

Source: Baer, J. (2014)

Know your audience

Everyone likes to feel special and twitter is one way to connect with your customer base, take the time to reply to questions and comments, engagement is key. If a customer goes out of their way to send you something interesting, reward them, re-tweeting their post or offering them a prize is a great way to inspire your customers and improve your brand image.

As well as customers you will also find a plethora of bloggers and twitter personalities, don’t underestimate them, these users have huge followings and keeping them happy will most likely work out in your favour.

Remember you are not in control

Twitter is a public domain and there is nothing to stop users placing your hash tags on their tweets. You need to carefully consider what you place online, the outcome could be very different to what you would expect.

Waitrse learnt this the hard way with their #waitrosereasons campaign, which eneded up damaging their brand image rather than strengthening it when followes didn’t take the campaign seriously.

Source: Smith (2013)

For more information on what do right and what not to do wrong check out the links below.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-hilarious-ways-corporate-twitter-accounts-go-wrong/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2012/05/08/5-tips-for-managing-your-companys-twitter-account/

http://www.stateofdigital.com/what-should-i-tweet-tips-for-planning-corporate-twitter-accounts/

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/corporate-twitter-account-train-wreck-the-3-types-of-self-destructive-tweets/

References

Baer, J. (2014) Corporate Twitter Account Train Wreck! The 3 Types of Self-Destructive Tweets. Convenience Convert, [Online] <http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/corporate-twitter-account-train-wreck-the-3-types-of-self-destructive-tweets/> [accessed 25th April 2014]

Smith, H. (2013) What Should I Tweet? Tips For Corporate Twitter Accounts. State of Digital,13 November 2013 [Online] <http://www.stateofdigital.com/what-should-i-tweet-tips-for-planning-corporate-twitter-accounts/> [accessed 25th April 2014]