Marketing Articles & Tips

6 Common Mistakes In Creating a Digital Marketing Strategy

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 18:25:05 GMT

How to avoid making the same mistakes that most other marketers are committing

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.

How to Create Meaningful Sales Conversations With Your Customers and Prospects

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 21:11:00 GMT

Snapshot Report is a digital audit that marketing agencies can use to start meaningful sales conversations with prospects on various online attributes.

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Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Ads: The Fundamental Guide

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 16:25:00 GMT

Unlock the fundamental pay-per-click (PPC) search ad strategy that you need to kickstart your lead generation efforts with Google Ads.

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Social Media Marketing: The Fundamental Guide

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 16:04:00 GMT

Learn the essential social media marketing strategies that you need to use to connect with an interested audience and generate leads.

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Influencer Marketing: The Fundamental Guide

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 23:44:00 GMT

Learn how you can efficiently use influencer marketing to reach new audiences, build social proof, and generate leads for your business.

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Twitter Ads: The Fundamental Guide

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 19:28:00 GMT

Learn how you can efficiently use a variety of Twitter ad formats to promote share-worthy content and generate leads for your business.

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Organic Twitter Marketing: The Fundamental Guide

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 22:53:00 GMT

Learn how you can use organic Instagram marketing strategies to showcase products, inspire your audience, humanize your brand, and generate B2B leads.

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Instagram Ads: The Fundamental Guide

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 19:04:00 GMT

Learn how you can efficiently use a variety of Instagram ad formats to generate awareness, interests, and leads for your business.

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Capitalize on Black Friday

joel@coaxconsulting.com (Joel Snyder) — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 17:19:09 GMT

Here is chance to start recouping from the COVID-19 revenue drop

How small businesses can capitalize on Black Friday!

Millions of small businesses have had a difficult year in 2020. As the novel coronavirus COVID-19 spread across the globe, governments all over the world took unprecedented measures to prevent the virus from claiming more lives. Public health measures like social distancing undoubtedly saved lives, but small businesses bore the brunt of the economic impact of such measures.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the number of active business owners decreased by 22 percent from February to April 2020. A Brookings analysis of Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker data found that, compared to January 2020, small businesses in North Dakota, Washington, D.C. and Hawaii experienced a 60 percent decline in revenue between mid-March and mid-May. In the wake of such challenges, many small businesses have been forced to shutter. For those that have managed to stay afloat, the upcoming holiday season could prove vital to their survival.

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and marks the unofficial beginning of the holiday shopping season. It's a day when consumer spending annually reaches into the billions of dollars. For example, Adobe Analytics reported that Black Friday shoppers spent a record $7.4 billion in 2019. Capitalizing on Black Friday in 2020 can help small businesses generate a substantial amount of revenue in a year that has been chock full of financial challenges. The following are some strategies small businesses can employ to make this Black Friday as lucrative as possible.

¥ Connect with the locals. In recognition of the economic challenges faced by small businesses in 2020, local chambers of commerce have gone to great lengths to encourage residents to shop local as economies have slowly reopened. Residents have responded to such efforts, and small businesses can do their part by making concerted efforts to connect with locals in advance of Black Friday. Advertise Black Friday sales in local newspapers and join your local chamber of commerce in encouraging shop local efforts on Black Friday.

¥ Open early. In an effort to promote social distancing, some big box retailers have announced changes to their Black Friday strategies. Those changes may include more limited store hours and later openings. Local small business owners can capitalize on such strategical shifts by opening their stores early on Black Friday without compromising social distancing guidelines. Place a sign outside your store that highlights your early opening but also reminds customers of your mask and social distancing policy. Thank customers in advance for adhering to your policy and for bringing much-needed revenue to your business.

¥ Optimize your mobile site. Lines are the norm on a typical Black Friday, but they might be even longer this year as small businesses minimize the number of people they allow in their store at one time. By optimizing their mobile sites in advance of Black Friday, small business owners can ensure shoppers waiting online have access to what's inside the store even before they enter. That can make it easier to wait on line and ease customers concerns about spending too much time inside the store.

¥ Emphasize your status as a small business. The pandemic will no doubt compel many Black Friday shoppers to avoid crowded malls and big box stores in 2020. Small business owners can use their status as small businesses to their advantage by reminding customers their showrooms are small and easily controlled.

Small businesses may be struggling in 2020. But Black Friday is a golden opportunity for small businesses to recoup some of the revenue they've lost in a challenging year.

If you want some support, feel free to schedule an idea session. It's free and can be scheduled directly on our calendar !

Organic Instagram Marketing: The Fundamental Guide

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 16:50:00 GMT

Learn how you can use organic Instagram marketing strategies to showcase products, inspire your audience, humanize your brand, and generate B2B leads.

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LinkedIn Ads: The Fundamental Guide

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 16:02:00 GMT

LinkedIn is the most powerful ad platform for generating B2B leads. Learn how you can use ads to boost your lead generation efforts.

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Organic LinkedIn Marketing: The Fundamental Guide

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 20:56:00 GMT

LinkedIn is the social hub for business professionals. Learn how you can leverage organic strategies to drive B2B lead generation on LinkedIn.

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Facebook Ads: The Fundamental Guide

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 20:15:00 GMT

Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world. Learn how to leverage Facebook ads to drive B2B lead generation outcomes.

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Salesforce Alternatives, the 7 Best B2B CRMs

Fri, 09 Oct 2020 17:16:00 GMT

Find the CRM that’s the best fit for your organization through this in-depth competitive assessment of the Top 7 Salesforce alternatives.

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Small Business Marketing

joel@coaxconsulting.com (Joel Snyder) — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 23:32:14 GMT

Marketing strategies for small business owners

Small businesses are the backbones of many local communities. Such businesses have helped to revitalize many communities and may benefit communities in ways that would surprise even the most ardent small businesses supporters. Economists at Penn State University studied data on economic growth and residence status of business owners that was from more than 2,900 rural and urban communities. The researchers found that small, locally owned businesses tend to generate higher incomes for community residents than large, non-local firms.

Small businesses can be vital to the success of a community, and those businesses own success may depend on how well they can market themselves to potential customers. The Small Business Administration notes that only one-third of small businesses will survive 10 years. Those that reach that benchmark often find ways to market themselves and grow revenue. Whether a small business owner is just starting out or looking to continue growing, these marketing strategies can be effective ways to connect with customers.

¥ Take advantage of the free Google listing service. Google My Business is a free service that allows business owners to manage how their business appears across Google, including on its Search and Map services. A Google listing is essentially the new phonebook listing, as the Local Consumer Review Survey in 2018 found that 27 percent of consumers looked online daily for local businesses in 2018. That's more than double the number of people who did so in 2017, suggesting that more and more consumers are finding local businesses via internet searches every day.

¥ Pay attention to your online reviews. Online reviews can be a mixed bag for business owners and consumers, but reviews still bear considerable weight among the latter. The 2018 survey found that 50 percent of consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 always read online reviews when shopping for goods or services. Consumers are most likely to read restaurant reviews, but small businesses, regardless of their industries, can benefit from positive online reviews.

¥ When possible, take part in local festivals. Local events such as Oktoberfest festivals and holiday shopping bazaars provide great opportunities to connect with new customers. Such events tend to attract residents of the community and even those from neighboring towns, providing ample opportunities for small businesses to connect with new customers.

¥ Make your presence known on social media. A 2017 survey from the social media specialists at Sprout Social found that 58 percent of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand they follow on social media than they are to buy from one they do not follow. Small business owners who learn to market their businesses can contribute much to their bottom lines and their local communities.

Coax Business Marketing is dedicated to the success of local business and hyper-targeted campaigns that drive a steady stream of customers. Contact us to learn more, take advantage of our FREE Idea Sessions by selecting a time on our Instant Schedule or calling 866-595-6710.

FREE REPORT: 10 Steps to Social Media Success

12 Top-Shelf Solutions for High-Quality B2B Lead Generation

Tue, 30 Jun 2020 22:12:00 GMT

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How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy for Beginners in 10 Steps

Thu, 28 May 2020 23:00:00 GMT

The following is a guest post by Tom Jager from A-Writer. Digital marketing is online marketing for websites. Simple, right? Turns out, there are at least seven main ways to market a website online. And that's where digital marketing strategy comes into play. These are the big guys -- like search engine optimization (SEO), digital advertising, social […]

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The 5 Ws (and 1 H) of Native Advertising

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What is native advertising? Whether you are a business exploring new territory, a marketing agency looking to add a new offering, or a publisher aiming to diversify—learn the ins and outs of this advertising tactic that is growing in popularity, and see how you can leverage it to support your growth.

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How to Generate Sales Qualified Leads

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Learn how to nurture sales qualified leads through organic lead generation strategies. Read tips on how to nurture, track, and close SQLs.

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5 Ways to Win Big with Online Video Marketing

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 21:35:00 GMT

In the early 2000s there was a running gag that mobile phones would get smaller as technology advanced. The joke was that eventually phones would become a speck of plastic. Of course, that didn’t happen. Instead of getting smaller, modern mobile screens accommodate one of the most popular forms of content on the internet: Video. […]

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The Channel Sales Starter Guide: How to Find the Right Managed Service Provider

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 21:26:00 GMT

Learn about channel sales and follow these tips to find a managed service provider for cloud solutions.

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Consultative Selling Strategy: How to Research a Lead and Develop the Right Questions

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 15:52:00 GMT

Discover a consultative selling strategy that includes proper research and asking the right questions.

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Outsourcing Sales: Everything You Need to Know

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Modern Sales Enablement: Tools and Software to Increase Your Revenue

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 15:22:00 GMT

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Managing Your Sales Pipeline: Advice from the Experts

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 22:59:00 GMT

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Eureka! How to Generate Leads Using the Lighthouse Client Strategy

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 18:54:00 GMT

Renowned marketing expert, Dennis Yu, tells us how marketing agencies can solve their lead generation problem by adopting the Lighthouse Client strategy.

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33 Best Sales Tools to Improve Your Sales Funnel

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 20:38:00 GMT

Lead the sales pack by augmenting your sales prowess with a combination of these 34 sales tools. Read our reviews to find the one(s) for you.

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Facebook Video Marketing Strategy from Dennis Yu For Local Businesses [3×3 Video Grid]

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 19:00:00 GMT

Social media expert Dennis Yu brings a new way of thinking about Facebook video marketing through BlitzMetrics's 3x3 video grid strategy.

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Digital Sales Automation: 5 Key Components of Automating Your Sales Process with Vendasta

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 15:31:00 GMT

The five key components to growing your bottom line, saving time, and making your organization more effective with digital sales automation.

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The Top 100 Online Business Directories

Thu, 02 Jan 2020 20:04:00 GMT

The most comprehensive guide to the top online business directories to date, both general and vertical-specific, backed by Alexa and Moz data.

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The Promise of AI-Driven Sentiment Analysis for SMBs

Wed, 18 Dec 2019 19:44:00 GMT

This product enhancement launch from Vendasta got me thinking about how local and small business can leverage the same machine learning and AI tools that large companies are using.

( Read More )

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Online Reputation Management: What You Can Control And What You Can’t

Wed, 23 Oct 2019 20:54:00 GMT

Roughly 97% of consumers read reviews before making a purchasing decision.
To businesses, reviews represent both the empowerment of the consumer and the opportunity to build trust - even if a consumer has never interacted with the brand before.

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Outbound Marketing the Inbound Way: How to fuel your local sales engine

Sat, 28 Sep 2019 19:36:00 GMT

FOUR YEARS AGO, I was sitting at my desk in the Vendasta marketing department—which, back then, consisted of myself, my CMO, and an overworked-yet-surprisingly-mellow designer—when our CEO, Brendan King, whirled into the room and declared, “Marketing’s main focus needs to be about leads. That’s all you guys should worry about. Leads, leads, leads.” He was […]

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Make phone calls more meaningful with Overtok

Mon, 16 Sep 2019 17:25:00 GMT

Phone calls are a great opportunity for our partners’ SMB clients to win repeat customers. Vendasta has a cool new solution in Marketplace that makes those calls more meaningful. Learn more about the partnership here .

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How to Position your Business for Growth in Crowded Markets

Thu, 29 Aug 2019 21:20:00 GMT

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Personal Branding Tactics for Business Success

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 16:48:00 GMT

A brand is a feeling, and it’s a subjective one. If we’re talking about McDonald’s, you are probably going to have a very specific outlook on that company based on your unique knowledge, experience, and socio-cultural position. If we consider Lebron James in the very same sense, you are going to have a similar cognitive experience, and that’s the result of effective personal branding tactics.

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How to Differentiate Yourself Against Other Agencies Online

Fri, 21 Jun 2019 16:18:00 GMT

Once someone enters your website, you only have 10 seconds to leave a good impression and inform your audience what they’ll get out of your marketing agency

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10-Step Email Marketing Checklist

Wed, 01 May 2019 21:35:00 GMT

Email marketing creates an impact with the least amount of dollars spent. Here a 10-step email marketing checklist to help you create successful campaigns

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Everything You Need to Know About Social Media Image Sizes

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 19:28:00 GMT

Social Media is hard. Enhance your online presence with the ultimate and up-to-date guide to social media image sizes.

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14 ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu Content Practices to Nurture Your Leads

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 16:45:00 GMT

ToFu content, MoFu content, and BoFu content are used to nourish leads at every stage of your sales funnel. Here are the best ways...

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