When working on your content strategy, it is crucial to avoid making the same mistakes that most other marketers are committing. What we’re going to say in this article might surprise some of you, as it goes somewhat against the grain. However, the truth is that many marketers are committing these mistakes, and it’s preventing them from improving their bottom line.
Let us get into these six common mistakes.
1. Not Having a Content Strategy At All
Unfortunately, a lot of marketers neglect to create a content strategy. They might pump out a few blog posts here and there, but without a solid, clear content strategy, you won’t be able to build up a reliable stream of organic traffic.
Paid ads are all fine and good, but it’s vital to have a solid content strategy as well. A good content strategy is the backbone of your digital marketing efforts. It allows you to get more out of all your marketing efforts, including paid ads.
To highlight the importance of an organic content strategy, here’s an interesting statistic: Organic search results are 8.5x more likely to get clicked on than paid search ads. A solid content strategy will get your blog posts ranking high in the search results, and your inbound traffic will shoot up.
2. Automating Digital Marketing Efforts
“But wait! Didn’t I read that automation is good?”
Well, of course, automation comes with its benefits, and you can use it to get more done, be more productive, and accelerate your growth. However, it must be used wisely.
Relying solely on automation means that you will miss out on essential opportunities to expand your growth. For example, if you schedule blog posts to be published but never check your blog, you will not be able to respond to comments, and your blog will look dead. You may also need to publish blog posts related to news reports that come out, which can’t be scheduled months in advance.
The same goes for social media. You need to engage with your followers. Even PPC ads must constantly be monitored for changing market conditions.
3. Investing Too Much In Unsustainable Strategies
You need to ask yourself which strategies are truly sustainable in the long run. It doesn’t matter whether they are making money for you right now. What does matter is whether you can rely on them to work in the future.
Search engine ads and social media ads can be used to improve your bottom line and earn a profit. However, there’s no guarantee that they will be sustainable in the long run.
There are many factors that can affect the sustainability of search engine ads and social media ads. For example, more competitors can enter the market, causing the bidding to become more competitive.
In the early days of Google Ads, for example, PPC ads were not as expensive as they are now. You could bid a low price and still win top rankings for your search engine ads. Now, years later, there are many more competitors vying for those same few spots allocated to search engine ads in the search results.
As a result, prices have gone up. Who knows what rates will look like ten years from now? Many marketers are even turning to Bing Ads, which tend to be cheaper than Google Ads, but even that can go up in the future, and Bing Ads limits you to the Bing user base, which is only a fraction of Google’s user base.
Social media ads suffer from the same problem. As prices go up, you will be forced to adapt to keep earning positive returns.
That’s not to say that search engine ads or social media ads are bad. They are good and can bring you a lot of profit. They can allow you to expand your growth quickly, at a pace organic content does not allow for.
However, organic content should always remain the backbone and spine of your overall strategy. When all else fails, you can rely on your organic content to bring in a steady stream of convertible traffic. Once you solidify your place in the search engine results, it will be hard for any new competitors to break into your position.
That’s one of the significant differences between search engine ads and organic search engine results. To get ahead in bidding competitions, you need to adjust your bids according to the demand. Newcomers may have an advantage if they bid more, all other factors (such as their own click-through rates, conversion rates, and profit per sale) considered.
However, once you solidify yourself as an authority in the organic search engine results, it will be tough for a newcomer to knock you out of your place. As time goes on, you will be adding more and more content to your site. Not only will that content help solidify your positions, but since website age is another factor in determining search engine rankings, it will be hard for a brand-new website to get ahead of you.
Think of websites like Moz, Neil Patel, Search Engine Land, and other significant blogs in the SEO niche. A new blog won’t stand a chance against them. Even if they stop doing ads entirely, they will continue to get constant traffic from their organic search engine rankings.
4. Not Investing In More Sustainable Strategies
Instead of investing too much effort into unsustainable strategies, you need to divert some of that energy and money into more sustainable, long-term strategies. The top sustainable strategies to invest in are:
- Email marketing
- Organic search engine traffic
- Organic social media traffic
Email Marketing
Building an email list is crucial because once you have an email list full of loyal fans, you will be able to market to that list for years on end. A small percentage will unsubscribe, but the remaining subscribers will be those most interested in what you have to say.
Organic Search Engine Traffic
I touched upon the importance of getting high rankings in the previous section. A good SEO strategy relies on continually publishing high-quality content. You’ll also need to do proper keyword research and work on building backlinks.
Organic Social Media Traffic
Building an organic social media following means you won’t have to rely as much on social media ads. Organic social media growth can lead to higher conversions and more inbound traffic to your site and landing pages. Focus on engaging with others and publishing great content on your social profiles.
5. Focusing Only On Lead Generation
Some marketers focus on getting as many leads as possible to the detriment of their conversion rates. Having 100 leads with a conversion rate of 10 percent will give you better results than 500 leads with a conversion rate of one percent.
In fact, 100 leads with a conversion rate of 10 percent can give you better results than 1,000 leads with a conversion rate of one percent. That is because getting leads costs money.
Instead of paying more for more leads, work on improving your conversion flow, so you get more out of your existing leads. Here are some ideas:
- Focus on building long-lasting relationships
- Use up-sells and down-sells
- Get subscribers to sign up for your email list, so you have more time to convert them
- Work on your sales copy
- Narrow your target audience, so you attract leads more likely to convert
Also, focus on improving your retention rates. Retaining an existing customer can cost just 20 percent of what it would cost to acquire a new paying customer. Instead of spending more money on attracting new leads, focus on building relationships with and keeping existing customers.
6. Not Getting Help From the Right People
This last point is essential. Nobody is an expert on everything. When it comes to digital marketing, turn to the experts, so they can help you improve your bottom line and get more conversions.
A digital marketing agency, for example, will be able to figure out your needs and develop a digital marketing plan to get you from where you are now to where you want to be. They can focus on your weak points and strengthen your good qualities.
A digital marketing agency with years of experience under its belt will also be more in tune with ever-changing market conditions. SEO and social media strategies must be constantly adjusted based on new Google algorithm updates and changes to social media platforms. It can be hard to keep track of all that yourself.
It’s best to rely on a digital marketing agency instead of putting yourself through a long learning curve. It will help you save more money in the long run.
Wrapping It Up
Avoiding these six common digital marketing mistakes will already put you ahead of the curve. Focus on creating a solid content marketing plan, work on building your organic reach on search engines and social media, and build up a solid email list. Get help from experts, and you will soon be leaving your competitors in the dust.
