Digital marketing is and was never an exact science. Many variables come into play, and the “best practices” seem to change every minute. The world’s technology is rapidly developing, after all, but this is exactly the reason why no one seems to have the perfect formula for digital marketing success.
Unfortunately, this is also the reason why there are so many misconceptions about digital marketing. Often, these misconceptions take the form of digital marketing practices that do not really work—or at least are no longer effective.
Here are a few examples of such practices, as well as why you need to avoid them.
1. Skimping on web design
Some companies skimp on web design in various ways, such as hiring inexperienced designers, doing the design themselves, or adopting a minimalist design but failing at it. As you can expect, tightening the budget on web design often results in subpar quality. Most of the time, companies have to spend even more to correct what has been done, thus defeating reducing web design costs.
There are plenty of companies that offer affordable web design services out there—you have to look for them. Affordable doesn’t always mean cheap, and cheap doesn’t always mean low-quality. However, it is good practice to pay for the quality you expect, so if the website design you want is complex, you have to be prepared to pay more for it.
2. Blasting ad after ad
Paying for ads is a great way to boost your reach, but it can put a huge dent in the marketing budget if you put out ad after ad with an unreasonable amount of time in between. Advertising does not guarantee revenue, and if you repeatedly hash out ads that do not contain sufficient substance, you may very well be shelling out more money than you earn.
Furthermore, paying for ads allows you to show up on your target audience’s feeds. But with repetitive ads, those potential customers are likely to turn into dead ends when they block your brand’s ads from their socials.
3. Overusing stock photos
Using stock photos for your advertisements, web design layouts, newsletters, and other digital marketing materials can save you a lot of time and money. However, the problem is that stock photos almost always look like stock photos; they often look unoriginal, uninspired, and—to put it simply—boring.
The best way to leverage stock photos is to use them on less significant parts of your website (but it is still better to use original photos when you can). On the other hand, keep them out of ads, promotions, social media posts, newsletters, and other digital materials—as much as possible, use original photos, art, and other visual materials to better capture the attention of your target audiences.
4. Filling blogs with links
Business blogs are essential tools for digital marketing. They allow companies to establish deeper relationships with their target audiences by providing them with valuable and relevant information. Through blogs, companies can help customers know more about their brand, their products, and even the industry as a whole.
Blogs are also crucial for search engine optimization (SEO) and play a significant role in having websites rank higher on search results. That said, there is a seemingly endless list of SEO strategies that many companies swear by, but not all of them are effective—and some may even do more harm than good.
One such strategy is filling blogs with links, which, at some point in the past, was an effective way to get your website to rank higher on Google’s search results. Today, it no longer works that well—and often only serves to annoy readers to the point of exiting the website without finishing the blog.
5. Ignoring micro-influencers
With the world’s obsession with influencers, many companies make the mistake of ignoring the “micro-influencers,” or those that have 10,000 to 50,000 followers on social media. It may seem that they have limited reach compared to influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers, but that is not true. In fact, micro-influencers tend to have better engagement than bigger influencers. Moreover, their followers are more likely to trust them than direct ads from a brand.
This list is certainly not exhaustive, but it includes some of the worst digital marketing practices that companies still keep on doing today. If you want to make the most out of your money and actually achieve results, make it a point to avoid these practices and strive for better ones.
