With the world continuously evolving into a more digital place, it is clear that businesses need to embrace online marketing to be able to reach their target audiences. Just because everyone else is doing it though doesn't mean that they're necessarily doing it correctly. Instead of jumping off the plank into the sea of social media with your hands tied, you can partner with an inbound marketing agency to make sure that your social media efforts are implemented and managed effectively for the best results.
When it comes to Social Media Optimization, be sure to avoid these 10 common inbound marketing mistakes:
Not having a plan before getting started. Yes, we all know that businesses need to have an active presence online, and many marketers make the mistake of sharing content via a blog or social media pages without having a clear plan or goal in place. This can result in chaos and wasted time.
Setting unrealistic goals. Keep in mind that online marketing might not have the best results with every industry due to a variance in customer demographics. Also, remember that the time, commitment, and resources that you dedicate to your inbound marketing efforts will directly affect the outcome.
Using an outdated, poorly built website. Your website helps to build credibility for your brand, and having a poorly managed and outdated site is a direct reflection on your business. It can also prevent you from capturing critical contact information from qualified leads that visit your website.
Allocating an inexperienced team member to handle social media. All too often, the youngest and least experienced member of your team is selected to handle the online marketing efforts since they often play on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Just because they know how to navigate through last week's spring break beach pictures does not mean that they are necessarily capable of handling your social media marketing efforts.
Calling every prospective customer that visits your website. Hopefully, your website has a landing page in place to collect valuable contact information from your online visitors; however, one of the biggest turnoffs for prospective customers is to receive a sales pitch phone call from your business as soon as they provide this information to you.
Calling every lead that visits your website. Again, you don't want to turnoff prospective customers by coming across as too eager. Also, not all leads will be qualified opportunities for you. Create a lead nurturing strategy for determining the truly valuable prospects and their stages in the buying cycle and focus your energy there.
Neglecting to follow-up with leads. It's important to nurture the new customer and help guide them down the sales funnel by occasionally touching base with information that they would find valuable and relevant. This will help your business to stay top of mind in the event that your customer is ready to buy again.
Not regularly sharing new, fresh content on your blog or social media sites. Search engine algorithms are designed to rank newer content higher on search engine results pages (SERP), and offering stale content on your site hurts SEO.
Not creating engaging content. If you're not being social with your audience and creating engaging content, you're not making the most of your online reach.
Not utilizing analytics to measure success. Neglecting to measure how your inbound marketing tactics are performing and refining them when necessary can cause you to constantly miss the mark with your target audience.
Partnering with an experienced inbound marketing agency can help you most effectively manage your online marketing efforts and avoid these common pitfalls. To learn more, please contact us at in2communications.
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