Why Do Digital Marketers Keep Making These Mistakes?
And what you can do instead
Digital Marketing isn’t an easy gig. It’s one where the rules are always changing and it can be difficult to keep up. We’re only human and can fall prey to making digital marketing mistakes without even knowing it.
Here are four of the most common mistakes I’ve noticed that digital marketers (myself included) keep making along the way.
1. Trying to do everything — and not well
When it comes to the realm of digital marketing, there are so many different tasks at hand that digital marketers need to stay on top of.
And it’s overwhelming.
From curating social posts across different platforms, running campaigns, monitoring ads, writing blogs, syndication strategy, optimising your site for search, creating emails…and sometimes even designing the content — need I go on?
Marketing professionals are faced with daily demands of needing to know how to execute multiple different marketing strategies promptly and effectively. And when you’re working for a smaller business where resources are scarce — the pressure is on.
But when we try to do everything, we can often miss the mark at excelling in anything, particularly if resourcing is an issue and it’s your responsibility to make everything happen.
It’s essential for digital marketers to take a look at what is most valuable for their business. What’s making money when it comes to digital initiatives? Instead of trying to do everything, look at what’s working and where the most fruit can be found from time spent on executing digital marketing efforts.
It’s also worth addressing that marketers need to be realistic with their time and energy. We can’t do everything in a regular 40 hour week, and working over-time everyday isn’t a long-term solution. Having realistic discussions with management and clients as to what can actually be achieved by one person or a small team is imperative — after all if you end up getting burnt out everyone will lose.
It’s good to point out that for business people trying to do their own marketing, asking for help and leaning on the experience of others is essential. Even if it’s paying a copywriter to draft up some social posts or getting an expert to implement small on page SEO changes — lean on others to get you further instead of struggling to do everything yourself.
2. Not knowing your tools
There’s no point paying for tools that are meant to assist your marketing initiatives if you don’t take the time to understand their capabilities. The same goes for getting to know your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and CMS (Content Management System).
So much time can be saved long-term when everything is set up well and it means you’re not fiddling around as much as you work. Watch the tutorials, go to the help section and FAQ’s — educate yo self! You might not even realize that you’ve been taking the long route to get things done.
Especially for those who are out on their own freelancing — everyone has a different CMS, and it can take quite a while figuring out the best practice and shortcuts in how to most effectively use new websites, scheduling systems and CRM’s. Making sure that you spend a little time at the start will keep your productivity higher throughout the project.
3. Setting, forgetting and not evaluating
Analysis is key, and when we’re just setting up strategies or campaigns and not evaluating regularly because of the demand to move onto the next thing — there’s risk of missing valuable learnings in order to increase uptake on whatever you’re trying to achieve or sell.
Moving on too quickly and not evaluating results is dangerous because data is king and it can help you prove a point! Having this data to back up decisions or assist in being able to provide reasoning for not pursuing a particular avenue is really important for marketers, especially because everyone thinks they’re a marketer.
Slotting in time into the calendar at least once a week to compare and analyse website metrics, email metrics, social stats, campaign results and thus tweaking and learning from them as a result is crucial. As marketers we need to pivot and be agile, which includes responding quickly to what’s working and not.
4. Not continuing to upskill and learn
Digital marketing is fast paced and influx.
If you’re managing social media accounts, you’re likely creating content several times a week for multiple platforms. You could be organising advertising funnels and email nurturing flows, plus ensuring that content marketing has fruitful SEO results.
We risk not continuing to upskill and learn until there is a forced update or change with one of the tools we are using since we are so busy.
It’s essential to make sure that we’re staying in front of the game. For example, Google gave a heads up in June 2020 that they’d be introducing Core Web Vitals to their Search Engine Ranking, which will eventually be rolled out in 2021. If your site isn’t thinking about what this means and isn’t starting to make positive changes now, you’ll be forced to make quick and stressful changes when it starts to matter and affect ranking.
If marketers aren’t pivoting regularly at news as soon as it becomes available, we risk becoming late adopters and not gaining the fruits acquired from staying ahead of competitors.
Tips: Sign up for industry-related newsletters (SMK, Search Engine Journal etc), ask for a development budget and sign up for courses from industry experts to keep learning, do the Google Digital Marketing Courses, listen to marketing and business-related podcasts, google stuff and watch on YouTube — it’s free.
Key Takeaways
Digital Marketing is especially difficult when you’re unable to stay ahead of the game and it feels like you’re paddling to just keep up.
But we know what the pitfalls are, and it’s time to put these frequently made mistakes to bed once and for all!
Schedule some time in your calendar to think about some weak areas and where there’s room for improvement. I recommend that you:
- Block out time each week to analyse results.
- Set up a way to monitor and evaluate data (google spreadsheet all the way).
- Make a decision to focus on a few key areas — and smash them.
- Set a few learning and development goals — find a podcast or a course you’d like to focus on and make it a goal to get it done (with a deadline or it’ll never be urgent enough). For example, check out hubspot, they have some great free courses!
- Spend some time getting to really know the tools you use.
- Ask for help if you’re struggling to do everything, or see if there’s a way to focus primarily on what’s working.
