Most starting entrepreneurs can relate to this: we try to do almost everything ourselves. I know these and have been through these challenges myself. I can’t blame you. Taking the responsibility of hiring someone is hard and as a starting business owner, every penny saved is important.
With the rise of digital media, we know how beneficial it can be for our business. It is a no brainer that we will always try to incorporate and maximize the use of digital marketing in your business.
The problem with digital marketing is that it keeps evolving and it never sits still. Meaning, what you know and doing now might be obsolete in the next few months. To help you with this, here are the digital marketing trends and practices that you should stop doing right now.
Focusing on Blog Post Quantity over Quality
They say that consistency is the key. Publishing two to three blog posts a week with the high hopes of Google rewarding them a top-notch in the search engine. Don’t get me wrong, they used to. However, Google has turned out to be smarter nowadays. The big guy is now gearing towards what some people call ‘user-signals’ where they reward pages based on how much time a user spends on the page or how far they scroll down or if they even click the links. These indicators tell the search engine if your website has quality content or not.
The solution: Focus on crafting quality content. Imagine you are the user. What really makes you read? Make use of visual cues or break paragraphs with images to make it easier to read. Lastly, use enough words and the right words. Longer form articles have more chances of being considered an ‘authoritative piece’. Each post should count.
Relying on Organic Social Media Reach
Over the past years, organic reach has really gone down. Gone are the days the free Facebook advertising can get you a good number of reach. Even if you have a Facebook page with a thousand followers, it’s only 2-3% of your audience that will actually see your post. The best way to make your social media efforts work is to put a little bit of money on each post. The good news is that Facebook offers really great targeting options. Anyway, social media advertising is still much cheaper than traditional media.
The solution: Start running some ads. Use the smallest budget possible until you find the best ad set that will give you the best returns. I highly recommend optimizing your ads to either send a message CTA or driving clicks to your website.
Generic Email Blasts
We can all agree that databases are gold! Your email list is still one of the most valuable assets you have, and that is because you own it. We all know that it is a must to collect email addresses and send email offers every now and then. However, that’s not how you should be doing your email blasts. Sending out generic emails to all your databases will just cause an increase in your to unsubscribe rate. Why? Because the email is not even relevant to them.
The solution: The best way to get around this is to start segmenting your list. Remember, not every offer is for everyone. Segment your audience based on their activity level, where did they sign up? What made them sign up? This way, you’ll have a better understanding of what makes them tick.
Not Having a Conversation With Your Customers
They say that conversation is the new conversion. I couldn’t agree more with that. In the age of digital media, automations, and one-click checkouts, people are yearning for human interaction. The thing is, even if you put all the information out there, human’s default action is still to ask rather than to read. Just like in any other physical business you see around, customer interaction also encourages them to convert.
The solution: Make sure your website is equipped to encourage human interaction. (i.e integrating messenger in your website). You can also leverage the power of social media to spark a conversation with your customer base.
These are just a few but very important ones. There’s still a lot of digital marketing practices that have already evolved. However, everything above is the most common digital marketing practice that a starting entrepreneur is highly likely to commit.
This article was originally published in Marketing in Asia, written by me.
