1. ANALYTICS, ANALYTICS, ANALYTICS
Setting up proper analytics on your website is important. It is not just about tracking the number of visitors on your website, but rather about knowing who the people visiting your website are.

Analytics will provide you with the demographics (age and gender) of your users, where they are from, their interests, and their online behaviour.

This information is integral to your digital marketing strategy because it helps you target a proper audience. The kind of audience you should be going for.

For instance, if you are promoting your post on Facebook, you can target to people from a certain age group, have a certain interest or behaviour and live in a certain location.

2. NOT PROMOTING YOUR BUSINESS
So you already have a beautiful website, great. But what’s the use if you do not have any traffic? You cannot expect visitors to just turn up on your website, browse a little bit here and there and make purchases. We’d all like that but the world is not a perfect place.

If you don’t have an email list just yet, the best place to promote your business is none other than social media platforms. Social media platforms allow customers to share your content and should be leveraged as a way to promote your business.

Aside from being active on social media on a consistent basis, it is also best if you start promoting your business through advertising. Set aside a considerable amount of budget for your company’s online marketing.

Also… Do your research before running an ad campaign. And don’t forget to conduct A/B testing. You can read more about A/B testing in point 4 below.

3. FAILURE TO ENGAGE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Being on social media has many perks. It allows consumers to follow you with your latest updates. Having a social media account and posting “stuff” isn’t enough. You have to monitor them consistently.

Aside from comments, there are also reviews and let’s be frank, there will definitely be a number of customers who do not like your company and will post negative remarks or reviews. You will have to be ready to address issues like this.

Treat your customers with respect and if they are unhappy, try to resolve the issue in private through direct messaging or through email. Trying to resolve issues openly isn’t a good idea because other consumers will see a negative side of you along the way as things may get ugly.

Engaging in social media, however, is not only for the negative but the positive as well. If a consumer is singing praises about your company, don’t forget to thank them. They are your walking testimonial.

Remember to always be respectful and try to be better all the time. As mentioned in point 3, do not forget to promote your business.

4. NOT DOING A/B TESTING
Running a campaign or an ad on social media may not usually go your way so it is important to run tests. A/B testing is a great method to figure out which marketing strategy approach is the best for you.

You need to have an objective to ensure that there is a way to measure the results of your A/B testing. As mentioned in point 1, these analytics will help you understand your audience better. You could measure the success metric of your A/B testing from the number of sign ups you have from a certain page on your website, for example.

It is important to allow your test to run over a period of time. Don’t just make it a one-time or a one-day test. It has to be over a few days, preferably a week, for this results to be accurate.

Tweak a little and keep testing multiple times. If Test B is doing better, use that against another new tests that you are conducting. If it’s not, revert to a Test A and test again with a Test C.

A/B testing is not only for your social media posts. It is advisable to test your email marketing and others as well.

5. UNDER OR OVER OPTIMIZED WEBSITE
Back in the day, stuffing your website with tons of keywords that is related to your business can easily boost your website’s page rank. However, that doesn’t work already and it has stopped working since 2012. Websites that does this will be penalised and their rank will be lower than before.

You can read more about how not to over optimize your site here.

However, being under optimized doesn’t help much either. If you are not good with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), the best way to get around this is to hire an SEO expert.

6. NOT GETTING PROFESSIONAL HELP
Digital marketing is now part of almost every business. However, most small businesses have a small budget so it’s understandable why they manage their own digital marketing. Managing your own digital marketing with little or no experience can prove costly.

This could slow down your entire progress. Digital marketing is a consuming job for you to undertake by yourself. Hiring a dedicated team(or agency) that knows their stuff can get you the results you need quicker with proper marketing strategy.

A successful digital marketing campaign can lead to a very successful brand. It is not always about conversion but rather being a leader in the industry. Who will you want consumers to remember for the very same thing you are doing? Yourself or your competitor?

CONCLUSION
There are plenty of tools online that can assist you with your digital marketing. Be sure to start tracking your results and not just the number of visitors to your website. The usage of analytics will be help you with promoting your business online through social media advertising and targeting the right audience. Your website should be also objective-driven so that customers have a clear call to action.

If all else fails, get professional help.

Check out Neu Entity’s portfolio here.
The author, Hanafi Mohd Sam, also blogs at https://mehms.com.