For marketing managers, the need to attract new customers through increased visibility is a bigger task than ever. With the growing complexities of our industry, including new players joining the market, constantly evolving channels and algorithm changes, it’s becoming more challenging to grow and retain clients through straightforward marketing efforts.
As a digital marketing agency in Milton Keynes, we have seen and experienced just about every kind of barrier when it comes to digital marketing and have successfully overcome every one of them to help our clients continuously grow.
What have we learned along the way? Simply put, that marketers must have a solid and considered digital marketing strategy to stay competitive in a crowded marketplace.
With this in mind, we decided to explore some of the most common pitfalls in digital marketing companies and how to fix them – ensuring brands consistently get seen, heard and found by the right people.
Understanding your target audience and their pain points
As a starting point, it’s important to always put in the work to understand your customer. Without a clear picture of your ICPs (ideal customer profiles), your marketing efforts risk falling flat and gaining little results. So, before any digital marketing campaign kicks off, we always recommend starting with detailed buyer personas to customise your messaging effectively, mapped to their specific challenges, pain points and key buying motivations.
Leveraging the importance of SEO
While it’s not the most creative process, search engine optimisation is of key importance for visibility. With an array of other channels to maintain, like email and social media, a company’s website can sometimes get forgotten in the mix. However, under-investing in SEO can significantly impact on a website’s discoverability across Google and other core search engines. As mk seo agency, we recommend partnering with a trusted SEO consultant in Milton Keynes to conduct proper keyword research, on-page optimisation and quality content creation for your brand.
Maximising social media
Whether your digital marketing strategy is focused on B2B or B2C marketing, social media marketing is arguably one of the most important tool for building brand awareness and engaging with your customers and wider community. The consistency of posts, engagement metrics and adaptability to algorithms all play a major role in social media performance. For example, what works on LinkedIn won’t necessarily work on Instagram. There’s also an art to balancing paid social and organic social to maximise results, including selecting which CTAs work best on a paid ad versus organic post.
Generating leads through PPC ads
PPC advertising is key for marketers looking to secure immediate local leads. By strategically bidding on relevant keywords, brands can ensure their ads appear prominently when potential customers search for products or services in a specific geographical area. This instant exposure drives website traffic, generates qualified leads, and increases sales. As a PPC agency near Milton Keynes, we particularly like that this channel gives you close control over ad spend, to optimise campaigns for maximum ROI.
Mobile-first optimisation
With the increasing number of mobile users out there, it goes without saying that mobile-friendly websites are essential in today’s world. A website that is not optimised for mobile devices can lead to poor user experience and lower conversion rates. In fact, as a web agency, we recommend designing a website with both desktop and mobile equally in mind from the outset, to ensure optimisation across all devices from the get go, rather than treated as a last minute afterthought.
Measurement and analysis
With the level of data now available across all channels, it’s more important than ever that decision-making is guided by data over a period, such as monthly and year-on-year, in line with the overall digital marketing strategy set at the outset of a project. Marketers should keep it simple and track the main key performance indicators to best analyse results, adapt and continuously optimise campaigns. The trick is to be guided by the data, not get bogged down with it!
Prioritise content marketing
The core part of a successful digital marketing strategy is content development, which underpins the messaging across all channels. Getting this right is vital for attracting and retaining customers. That’s because creating high-quality, relevant and consistent content is the key to connecting with your audience. This is what will ultimately drive brand awareness, protect brand reputation and engage your target audience.
Strategise, review, adapt and repeat
A final pitfall many marketers face is the annual digital marketing strategy document that gets created at the beginning of the year, only to never be opened again until the next year rolls around. Instead, every strategy should be revisited quarterly (at a minimum), with the necessary adjustments and improvements applied. Not everything always goes to plan and that’s okay, but regularly tracking your performance in relation to the overall marketing strategy is the only way of knowing just how effective your campaigns are.
By avoiding these common pitfalls, you can optimise your digital marketing efforts and achieve better results. Would you like to explore any of these further, or discuss specific strategies to overcome them? If so, Red-Giraffe web design and web development agency we’d love to hear from you.
