Top 6 Biggest Digital Marketing Mistakes To Avoid In 2022

Top 6 Biggest Digital Marketing Mistakes To Avoid In 2022

The new year is a time to refresh and reevaluate your digital marketing strategy. If your business is currently failing to get the desired results in sales, lead conversions, traffic generation, and more, then it’s possible that mistakes are being made with your current digital marketing efforts. Make 2022 the year to get it right. Here are the top 6 biggest digital marketing mistakes to avoid this year.

1. No Outlined Goals

If you don’t have clearly outlined goals, then you don’t know what results you hope to achieve.

How will you know if you have reached your goals if you haven’t outlined what that looks like? Start by creating SMART goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.

·         Specific

• • What do you hope to accomplish this year? Your goal may be to simply engage and connect with customers, or it might be to increase website traffic and conversions. Whatever your goal may be, make sure it is specific and clear.

·         Measurable

• • It’s not enough that your goals are specific, you need to make sure they’re easily measurable.
    

    

    Otherwise, you’re not able to tell just how effective your strategies are.

·         Attainable

• • While you should challenge yourself, you don’t want to make your goals completely out of reach. Ask yourself: are my goals attainable? If they’re unreasonable, reassess your goals. Don’t set yourself up to fail.

·         Relevant

• • Your goals should be relevant to your business, otherwise you’ll lose the interest of your customers. If your strategies don’t speak to your customer base, or it doesn’t align with your objectives, then it may be tough to achieve the results you hope to achieve.

·         Timely

• • This is where you have the chance to hold yourself accountable. Set a deadline for your goals. Mark your calendars for the day you plan to reach your goal. It’s easy to put off achieving your goals if there’s no end date in mind.

2. Undocumented Strategy

Not documenting a marketing strategy is one of the biggest mistakes marketers can make in 2022. According to HubSpot, only 32% of marketers say they have a documented content marketing strategy. By creating a documented, well-thought-out strategy, you can discover what is working and what isn’t. It’s important to remember that your marketing strategy doesn’t have to be set in stone. Over time, you may find that some things should be changed to drive better results. However, if you don’t have a plan, then there is no way to know what is working and what isn’t.

3. Posting on Social Media Without a Strategy

Up until this point, all marketing mistakes you can make have one common denominator – lack of planning. Social media is no different. If you’re posting on social media just to post and don’t have a real clear direction, then you’re making a big marketing mistake. The best practice for social media marketing is to create content that is of value and engages your audience. The best way to do to this? Have a plan. Write out what your goals are with being active on social media. Is it to interact with current customers? Drive conversions? Gain more leads and sales?

4. Avoiding SEO

Avoiding SEO doesn’t make it go away. SEO, also known as search engine optimization, is absolutely essential for businesses in 2022. To increase your visibility in search engine results and help your business get found by your target audience, then you really need to focus on your SEO strategy this year. To create a winning SEO strategy, you want to follow these steps:

1. Identify Your Target Audience
2. Define Your Core Topics
3. Pinpoint Keywords That Work
4. Optimize Wherever You Can, When You Can
5. Keep Information Relevant and Current
6. Track Your Success

Coming up with an SEO strategy can take a lot of expertise. If you don’t currently have a digital marketing agency you work with, now is the time to explore the idea of hiring a professional. VitalStorm is here to help with all your SEO needs, too.

5. Buying Followers

In this day and age, the number of likes and followers holds a lot of weight for many businesses. You may find yourself looking at your competitors and wondering how they have so many likes and followers. There are ways to increase your followers without buying them. Buying them is a huge mistake you can make in 2022, and here’s why.

• Followers that are bought don’t interact with your page.
• It can get expensive, and you don’t always see the return you hope to see
• Buying fake followers can actually damage your reputation
• You run the risk of being banned
• It doesn’t create the engagement by itself
• The result is only short-term
• They aren’t your target audience, and likely won’t buy your products or use your services

There are a lot of ways you can increase followers without paying for them. Some ways to do so include:

• Hosting giveaways and contests
• Running ads and campaigns
• Use the right hashtags
• Engage with people on your page
• Create engaging and relevant content

6. Assuming Email Marketing is Dead

With the improvement of technology over the years, many people are under the impression that email marketing isn’t effective any more – but they couldn’t be any more wrong. According to Eric Stahl, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing for Salesforce Marketing Cloud, neglecting email marketing is a huge, costly mistake. In a matter of seconds, marketers have the ability to find out the best times to send emails in order to increase open rates, what subject lines should be used, and what to expect from each email. The future of email marketing is something no marketer should avoid. Email is still considered to be one of the best, most effective channels for promoting products and services. Assuming it is no longer effective is one of the worst mistakes to make in 2022.