We all make mistakes, but when they are made in the marketing process, it can cause your business to falter and struggle to keep up with the market. It is imperative that you stay on top of your marketing strategy and changing trends to avoid mistakes as much as possible.

These mistakes can vary in the way they can affect your business, but all are important to the marketing strategy you should have in place. Learning from mistakes is great, but learning what could happen before it happens, is a safer option. Learn from others’ mistakes to make sure you are on top of the game and your business does well.

Of course, all entrepreneurs will make mistakes, that’s why at Elemental Plans, we offer services and plans that help entrepreneurs on their marketing journey. You are never alone when you work with Elemental Plans. We offer a variety of services and plans to fit any business’s needs. Check us out here, https://www.elementalplans.com/ to learn more!

1. No defined target audience

The first thing you do when it comes to marketing is to determine WHO you are marketing to. If you don’t have a defined target audience that you are wanting to advertise to, those ads could, and will be, lost in translation with a lot of the consumers out there.

You want to make sure that the right audience is seeing your ads. It also works both ways, once you define who your target audience is, you can decide what that audience wants to see, and thus, be able to create content around those ideas.

2. You don’t niche down

We have discussed on our blogs what a niche is, but just to jog our memories we’ll give a brief definition. A niche is defined as a specialized market segment for a certain product or service.

To give an example of niching down, let’s look at the shoe market. You can start with shoes, but we can get more specific. How about athletic shoes? Great, but we think we can niche down even more into running shoes. Running shoes is a saturated market, so maybe you want to niche down just a bit more. You could choose long-distance runners or marathon runners.

Entrepreneurs often make the mistake of sticking to running shoes thinking they are drilled down enough to determine who their target market should be, but this can sometimes be too large of a market which, as we stated above, is highly saturated with competition.

3. Consistency is nonexistent

If your content doesn’t match your brand or tone, it will look like it came from a completely different company. You want your target audience to immediately think of you when they see one of your posts. Brand recognition is key to growing your business. If you lack consistency, the impression your brand leaves on someone won’t be as lasting.

4. Not utilizing keyword research

If you’re new to our content, check out this informative blog on keyword usage and why it can be important to your marketing strategy.

Now that we’re caught up and on the same page about what keyword research is and why it’s important, then we can all agree that utilizing this tactic is detrimental to your online presence. You’re doing a disservice to your business by not working harder on getting ranked higher on search engines and traffic will suffer.

5. Poor website design

In one of our last blogs, we talked about user experience and why it’s important. Poor website design can lead to a bad user experience. Poor website design can leave consumers feeling frustrated when using your website and ultimately cost you a sale.

Elemental Plans offers website optimization for our clients that already have up-and-running websites that they like, but we also offer a website redesign and creation that will create a great user experience for your customers.

6. No clear marketing strategy

This is also one of the first things you should do in the marketing process. Every business should have a clear and concise marketing strategy with attainable goals. With no clear marketing strategy, you are wasting your time, money, and many resources. If you need help with building a marketing strategy, give us a shout, we're here to help you.

7. Not mobile friendly

Have you ever gone to a website on your phone and the layout doesn’t fit into the screen and it’s hard to navigate? This is a business that is forgetting about its mobile consumers and their experience. We could lump this in with poor website design and user experience, but we think it should be a mistake on its own because mobile users account for almost half of internet traffic.

Making sure that a website is easily readable and easy to navigate on a phone is especially important. So many sales are lost because users don’t want to hassle with figuring out where to go on the website. You could also include apps in this category as well. If you don’t have an app, you might want to think about getting one.

These are just a few of the common mistakes that businesses make in their digital marketing. There are plenty more and most are bound to make a few marketing mistakes, but if you can learn first what to avoid, you have a better chance of not making that mistake in the future.

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Sources

HubSpot, “The 13 Worst Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid & How to Fix Them”, Pete Caputa, November 18, 2021, https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4373/3-really-bad-internet-marketing-mistakes-i-bet-you-re-making.aspx, Accessed October 17, 2022

Forbes, “15 Common Marketing Mistakes Entrepreneurs Should Avoid”, Expert Panel, Forbes Business Council, January 17 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2020/01/17/15-common-marketing-mistakes-entrepreneurs-should-avoid/?sh=4c4c1334f876. Accessed October 17, 2022