7 Reasons your Digital Marketing is Failing to hit the Mark

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July 8, 2021 Marketing

Creating, launching and managing a successful digital marketing strategy isn’t an easy task, which is why you need to know that your efforts are going to drive the outcomes you want to see.

If you’re struggling to get your campaigns off the ground or simply aren’t securing a decent return on investment (ROI) and you’re wondering exactly what’s going wrong, here are a few things that you might want to look at in more detail.

1. The Consequences of an Ineffective Research Process

Buyer personas profile your audience and give you an understanding of precisely who you are marketing to. This means that they need to be informed by solid data analysis and comprehensive audience research. If your research process is lacking, however, you may end up trying to target the wrong people or use messaging that just isn’t resonating with your ideal consumer.

2. Your Messaging and Target Audience are Incompatible

You need to ensure that your messaging is specifically tailored to the unique needs, wants and desires of your target audience. If you don’t use a tone of voice and format that will engage your audience, you aren’t going to cut through all the online noise and reach your ideal consumer.

The types of content you invest in creating and the tone you adopt should be informed by your market research and buyer personas. Think about how your ideal consumer speaks and where they spend most of their time online. Then develop a tone of voice that suits your brand’s personality and will appeal to the right people.

3. Your Success Metrics are Unrealistic

In creating marketing goals and objectives, it is important to use the SMART system; specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Before you launch a campaign, you need to ensure that your metrics and goals are both attainable and realistic because otherwise you’re simply setting yourself up to fail.

Whether it’s increased brand awareness, higher conversion or additional high-quality leads, take the time to really think about what you want from your digital marketing and set appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs). The metrics you use to measure success should be based on what you want to achieve and will ultimately provide you with a solid foundation of data that will allow you to closely evaluate whether your campaign is a success or whether it will benefit from some refinement.

4. Your Social Media Presence isn’t up to Scratch

It is no longer enough to simply have social media profiles. You also need to know how to utilise them in ways that will support your wider digital strategy. Poor social media strategy can at best, make you look a bit off message and at worst can lead to PR own-goals. Remember, social media is all about forming connections and contributing something of value to your community. So, you need to ensure that each social channel you choose to use has a clear purpose.

In addition to creating a content calendar that will help you to maintain your social media presence, you should also frequently analyse relevant analytics data to devise ways to further enhance your online profile.

5. You’re Always Searching for Shortcuts

We’re going to level with you here: there simply aren’t any successful shortcuts to digital marketing success. Instead, you need to invest in a robust, multi-pronged strategy shaped around a small selection of very specific goals.

So, if you want to skip the buyer persona process, stuff keywords into your content, or get too caught up in quantity over quality, you’re going to compromise your strategy before it’s even had the opportunity to get going.

6. Your Sales and Marketing Goals Aren’t Aligned

Failing to align your sales and marketing objectives can seriously undermine the investment you are making into both areas. Bridging the gap between your sales and marketing efforts can strengthen your position within the marketplace, allowing you to set yourself apart from your competition.

Importantly, this should be viewed as an ongoing process whereby frequent reporting is undertaken and objectives are consistently reviewed and re-optimised.

7. You’re Viewing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as a One-and-Done Thing

SEO is an adaptive process that requires consistent evaluation, which means that it isn’t possible to optimise your site and then simply forget about it forever. If you want to ensure that you are in a position to use search engine algorithms to your advantage and consistently rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs) you simply can’t afford to take your eye off the ball for any length of time. If you do, you will start losing out to your competitors who are highly adaptive and are investing in the right areas of their digital strategy.

Additionally, you also need to ensure that you are avoiding black hat SEO tactics and using established white hat techniques that don’t violate Google’s Webmaster’s Guidelines. As Paul Morris at Bristol based SEO company, Superb Digital, states: “Though there are still some black hat SEO techniques out there that may garner some quick wins, the associated risk is never worth the investment.”

In Conclusion

If you work in an established industry and you’ve been told that your digital marketing strategy will deliver instantly impressive results, then you’ve been lied to. Let’s not forget that the online landscape is extremely competitive, so it’s going to take time to start seeing results that will ultimately help you to out-perform your closest competitor brands.

In addition to consistent investment, you will need to monitor the right metrics to ensure that your campaigns are fully optimised and given the support they need to drive positive outcomes. By taking the time to think about some of the reasons why your marketing strategy might not be driving the results you wanted or expected to see, you have already taken the first step towards creating a powerful approach that will allow you to transform the online success of your business.