When trying new ways to promote their company, on new channels, for example online, most decision makers resort to specialized consultants. This could be by outsourcing to an online marketing agency or contracting an external marketing consultant.
Included in the advice they receive, although sometimes is not heeded, are valuable ways to avoid some currently made errors.
Here is a list of 5 of the most common online marketing mistakes:
1. Marketers focus on delivering the message to the potential buyer, but they forget to customize their message to the costumer’s needs. Most online messages are extremely technical, little adapted to user’s experience with the brand and don’t focus on the benefits, on presenting what the potential costumer is gaining in the end, but rather on various features. Companies have to quit using the same strategy over and over again, and start adopting a H2H (human-to-human) communication model, in which the primary concern is customer’s need.
2. Companies seek to be present in online, anywhere, just to check in the to-do list. Choosing quantity over quality is not the best way to go when you want to approach a certain target profile. It’s important to search the best communication channels for the business, or else is just digital “noise”- a cluster of channels, sources and information from which the user, with the speed he/she is browsing, has no time to choose. The best solution would be not to think in terms of “the more the better”, but “better targeting”.
3. Some messaging seems to be designed to be one way, without trying to create the appropriate environment for interaction and discovery. Always focus on the customer’s needs, looking for new methods to attract its attention and get them involved.
4. Thinking a campaign with a 360 degree perspective is not often done. For example, the online agency receives print materials and is asked to promote them online. The message has to be adapted to the medium and target, and the creative vision to be a part of the communication, not unidirectional. The correct option is to adapt the mechanisms to the medium, not the other way around.
5. Leave online communication to the interns or the part time students. Keeping costs low is important, but so is your company’s image. Can anyone who has a Facebook page manage a company page? Can anyone who uses a camera to make home movies create an advertising video? Not using professionals will lead to weak content, badly framed and poorly edited etc., leading to a “patched” overall picture. Is this what your company wants to project?
I am hoping these tips help. And it is worth remembering that unlike other mediums, what it put on the web stays on the web forever, it is almost impossible to guarantee that it can be removed – a trace can always be found somewhere.
