10 Pitfalls, Entrepreneurs should be aware of with Online Marketing.
In today’s connected world ‘Online or Digital Marketing’ is a necessity and that too an inexpensive one, however when you embark on the journey read the below and sing your way to digital success.
Here are the 10 Pitfalls to be avoided
Procrastination – Putting it for another day: ‘I have my basic website, I created my Facebook page, twitter account but I haven’t posted online’ – I have heard that many times – if you do not have fresh content which is updated weekly you are not marketing your brand online. Work out a conversational calendar for your social media and a topic which is interesting to your audience. Expose the same via your website and blog. Amplify the voice via twitter.
Doing it in-house or myself: No one can be as passionate or as enthusiastic as yourself, but give yourself a break, you need to focus on your core business, do what you are good at and hire the experts. It’s a win win.
Copying a competitor’s website or social plan: Come on we can do better than that! Original ideas are what stands out, have an ignition session with the experts, by the end of it I promise you will have enough ideas to last the next 3 years. Now that’s a head start.
Going online without a strategy: Moving around in circles? Not reaching anywhere? Yes we need a plan, a road map and KPI’s (Key Performance Indices) basically goals. Start by putting a 5 year plan then drill down to a year then to 6 months, quarterly and then monthly and monitor your activity. Goals could be as simple as reach 10,000 organic ‘likes’ in 2 months.
Ignoring SEO in your plans: Google is your new homepage – Clients are looking for a product or service similar to yours, if they don’t find you on the first 3 pages you have lost the opportunity. Search Engine Optimization is simple, you just need to put the keywords which are popularly searched. Your company is the answer to the customer’s query. Sold!
Setting unrealistic KPI’s: Rome was not built is a day, neither can your online presence. It takes painstaking effort, careful planning and loads of hard work to keep your brand afloat.
Ignoring Analytics: When is the right time to post?, which is the page where users exit my website? What is my competition doing online? These answers provide valuable insight for an agile company to maneuver themselves towards being an online success.
Sporadic response: Digital is a 2 way street, very sensitive and like us humans, very judgmental. You need to continuously create content, post, blog, tweet, like, follow and above all respond to user’s queries. Maintain the dialogue, else the conversation is over!
Putting all eggs in one basket: What if the website shuts down, we have witnessed MySpace, Orkut and Blackberry falling out of grace pretty much overnight, My advise spread your presence, use the same conversational calendar, but have multiple strategies for Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the rest of them.
Ignoring or deleting negative comments: There is no such thing as negative publicity, it is in fact an opportunity for you to rise above the situation, take the conversation offline, solve the issue and then bring it back online and showcase it to the rest of the audience who are watching your every move.
Above all this if you feel technophobic, call the experts for an awareness session, understand the technology, the opportunity it presents and above all do you really need it? for example An industrial spare part manufacturer will not benefit from a Pinterest or Instagram presence, yes he will definitely be active on LinkedIn.
Now that you know the pitfalls, it’s time to engage!