marketing mistakes Archives

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14 Marketing Mistakes Startups Often Make (And How To Fix Them)

May 22, 2024 No Comments

Sourced from Forbes

For many new entrepreneurs, one of the most exciting stages of starting a business is getting the word out to potential customers. This is the stage when you can finally start to generate interest in what you have to offer, which means more customers and more profits. However, marketing can involve a multitude of different strategies and tactics, leaving plenty of room for error and overcomplication.

Thankfully, like most things in business, marketing mistakes create a great opportunity to learn and adjust for future success. To help, 14 experts from Forbes Communications Council discuss some of the most common marketing mistakes they see a lot of startups make, as well as their recommendations for what they should be doing instead.

1. Trying To Tackle It All

The pace, the speed, the desire to “do it all”—these are the traps to be wary of as the team sets out to develop a brand or launch a product as a startup. Simply put, instead of tackling it all, take on one, two or maybe three short-term initiatives that can both drive revenue and build your brand. Stay disciplined and be willing to defend your decisions within the organization. – Blair Primis, Flagship Specialty Partners

2. Agonizing Over Their Online Presence

Startups often agonize over their online presence, taking on large web design projects, spending valuable time on logo work and delaying social media. They should invest time in developing products and services, getting the right employees and finding and supporting customers. Get started in practical ways online and upgrade over time versus going for perfection early on. – Tom Treanor, Snipp Interactive

3. Failing To Follow A Strategy Based On Research

Startups often take on random acts of marketing versus following a strategy based on research: market, buyer, competition. Further, many startups feel they can buy their way into leads and brand recognition with paid ads. But without strategy, experience and data, they will churn through the budget fast with very little quality or output to show for it. – Alison Murdock, Trusted CMO, Inc.

4. Putting More Effort Into Marketing Than The Actual Product

A pattern I’ve seen in many startups is the 80/20 mix: 80% of the budget and resources go to marketing, while 20% go to product. While this might be effective in securing early funding and a strong user base, empty hype around products with limited value and functionality will damage a young company’s credibility and diminish its potential for future growth (or acquisition). If you build it, they will come. – Nick Karoglou, ACI Worldwide

5. Rushing Toward A ‘Big Bang’ Approach

A common misstep I’ve observed is the rush toward the “big bang” approach in marketing without first understanding the battlefield. It’s like launching a spectacular fireworks display in broad daylight! The mantra should be: Observe, engage, then fire. Find out where your audience hangs out, experiment in those spaces with bite-sized, impactful messages, and then learn from the feedback and scale. – Vikas Agrawal, Infobrandz

6. Prioritizing Short-Term Gains Over Branding

Startups often prioritize short-term gains over branding. Instead, focus on defining brand identity, maintaining consistent messaging, delivering exceptional customer experiences, building trust, investing in content marketing and embracing authenticity. These aspects contribute to a strong foundation for long-term success. – Suneeta Motala, Stewards Investment Capital

7. Mistaking ‘Activity’ For ‘Strategy’

Too many marketers, especially early in their careers, mistake “activity” for “strategy.” To avoid this problem, brands need to clearly define their audience, understand the problem they solve and articulate their point of difference. Start there, and then create marketing objectives, strategies and measures from which to execute. – Dave Minifie, Terakeet

8. Focusing On The Bottom Of The Marketing Funnel

Most startups are so zeroed in on revenue that they tend to focus on the bottom of the marketing funnel. This is amplified by the fact that lower funnel marketing activities are easier to track and provide valuable data for startups. That said, startups are entering new markets with no brand awareness. Investing in brand building allows companies to broaden their pool of interest and be more efficient. – Roshni Wijayasinha, Prosh Marketing

9. Developing The Brand Before Conducting Market Research

It’s not about the logo. I’ve seen it time and time again. Many founders are too quick to spend time and/or money on developing the brand before they have invested in market research to establish the viability of their product or service, define differentiators and determine the target market among other things critical to the success of a startup. – Jen Iliff, 3X Marketing

10. Overlooking The Importance Of A Cohesive Brand Identity

Startups often fail to establish a consistent visual and messaging presence, hindering brand recognition. Instead, they should invest in creating a strong brand identity from the outset, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints. This builds trust, fosters brand loyalty and sets the foundation for successful long-term efforts. – Maria Alonso, Fortune 206

11. Assuming Media Coverage Will Generate Funding

Startups often think generating media coverage will automatically lead to funding. In reality, investors invest in founders. Startups should prioritize building founders’ market credibility and showcase their ability to scale the business. Strong leadership and a solid customer base will help make startups more attractive to investors, increasing their chances of securing funding in the long run. – Parna Sarkar-Basu, Brand and Buzz Consulting, LLC

12. Aiming To Make A ‘Big Splash’

Startups want to make a big splash and too often go for the quick hit that fizzes out. Startups need to start with a strategic plan that includes their vision and goals. From there, a marketer can develop a plan that aligns with the strategy, creating a regular cadence of brand awareness and important sales. This will help a startup last! – Kimberly Osborne, UNC Greensboro

13. Lacking Focus And A Plan

A startup has limited resources, yet founders often try to be all things to all people. Do the research, understand the market for your product, talk to customers directly for their insights and build a focused go-to-market plan. I built a GTM blueprint that includes the ideal customer profile, the company manifesto (unique selling point, messaging and more) and a comprehensive execution plan. But, above all, gain focus. – Doug Vinson, Secuvy Inc.

14. Taking The ‘Faster, Better, Cheaper’ Route

“Faster, better, cheaper” is not a strong basis for long-term competitive advantage. Startups tend to focus on launching new products and branding based on functional benefits against a narrow target market. Build competitive advantage by ensuring your brand is differentiated from your competition and incorporates emotional benefits, purpose and identity. Build your brand—not just your revenue. – Toby Wong, Toby Wong Consulting

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Feature Image Credit: GETTY

Sourced from Forbes

Expert Panel®

Communications, PR, public affairs & media relations executives from Forbes Communications Council share firsthand insights.

In News

Social Media Marketing Mistakes Every Entrepreneur Should Avoid

August 18, 2022 No Comments

Sourced from BOSS Magazine

Social media is an essential tool for any budding entrepreneur to connect with their audience. Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube offer unique methods of marketing to engage your audience and show off your brand’s identity. But if you’re a social media newbie or have only used social media for personal reasons, you might want to conduct research before delving into the world of social media marketing. In some ways, social media marketing for business and pleasure do share some similarities.

When we curate an online identity for ourselves, we create our own personal brand. We choose images and videos that present our best selves to our friends and family. When marketing their business on social media, many entrepreneurs make the mistake of over-promoting themselves or creating ads with too much text. Social media is an image and video-driven advertising tool and each platform requires a different promotional format. Furthermore, while our personal social media accounts represent our best or ideal selves, business accounts may benefit from emphasizing their authenticity. As author and social media expert Paul Gillin says, “Transparency may be the most disruptive and far-reaching innovation to come out of social media.”

Depending on their age, social media users may react to online advertisements differently, but most social media users have become accustomed to a constant stream of fake news and overexaggerated advertising. That’s why presenting a unique and authentic brand identity while also capitalizing on social media trends and tags will help your business stand out in a flood of identical ads. Sounds kind of like learning a whole new language? It can seem that way. Luckily, these business professionals have worked with social media and had firsthand experience with some of the most common social media mistakes. Read on to find out which social media marketing mistakes you should avoid when you’re just starting out.

Know Your Platforms

There are plenty of social media platforms to choose from. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are probably the biggest players right now. Each platform is made up of a different audience—Facebook users, for instance, tend to be older than 40 while TikTok is steadily growing in popularity with Gen Z. Eric Elggren, Co-Founder of Andar recommends knowing your target audience and the type of media most prevalent on each platform before starting an account.

“There is a learning curve with social media and it’s okay to start slow. I would choose one or two platforms to focus on until you get the hang of things. If your target audience is older, I would steer clear of TikTok and master platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Also, think about what you’re selling and what format it is best presented in, and think outside of the box. If you have a very aesthetically pleasing product like clothing or makeup, I would say that Instagram is going to be best for those high-quality photos.

YouTube is also great for high-quality videos presenting the scope of a product or service, but the average consumer’s attention span is only a couple of seconds. If you want to introduce your team or present testimonials in an authentic way, a shorter video on TikTok or Instagram Reels can grab your audience’s attention for those few seconds. Whichever platforms you choose, I would spend some time on those platforms looking at the formatting of the ads there.”

Track Analytics and Trends

Guna Kakulapati, CEO of CureSkin recommends using a social media analytics tracker to ensure your ads are receiving views and engagement. He also encourages the use of tags and trends to boost your posts when you’re first starting out.

“Even if your team works for weeks on a beautiful ad campaign, it won’t do you any good if nobody sees it. You have a higher likelihood of your brand getting noticed with paid ads, but if you’re shooting for a viral moment, scoring those organic impressions can be one of the hardest humps to get over. If you want to make sure your product is seen, you have to track how many likes and saves you’re getting on each post. I would recommend using analytics tracking tools like Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics. If your impressions and reach are really low, a paid ad might be best. But I think any post can go viral if it follows the trends. As silly as it sounds, that means those viral songs, dances, and memes could be the key to your next sale.”

Interact with Your Audience

If there’s one aspect of social media as a marketing method that sets it apart from TV or billboard advertising, it’s the fact that it’s interactive. You can actively engage your audience’s organic reactions to your advertisements or products in real-time. Most social media platforms allow users to repost and share products that they find interesting, leading to even more eyes on your product. On the flip side, social media users can also share bad reviews and their opinions on poor customer service. Jeff Bezos says, “If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.” That’s why it’s even more important to ensure customer satisfaction online. Mark Sider, CEO and Co-Founder of Greater Than, suggests that entrepreneurs interact directly with social media users by responding to comments or direct messages.

“If someone posts a funny comment or asks a question in the Instagram or Facebook comments of your post, that likely means they’re interested in further interacting with your business. It’s so important to take advantage of those moments of authentic business-to-client interaction. If it’s a silly comment, leave a response in return. If it’s a question, answer it in a timely manner. Not only will your asker be impressed by that one-on-one attention, but anyone else who looks through the comments will see those interactions as proof that your company cares about its clients.”

Set Social Media Goals and a Schedule

Theresia Le Battistini, CEO and Founder of Fashion League recommends setting business-minded goals on social media involving specific numbers and metrics.

“Like every other form of advertising, social media marketing needs specific goals to work. I would recommend setting SMART business goals—goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. So you wouldn’t just say that you want to increase sales or improve engagement through social media. You would choose a specific number of followers or sales as your goal. From there, you can schedule your social media posts on each platform with that goal in mind. If you’re aiming for more followers, you may need to post and create new content more regularly. If you’re aiming for more sales, then maybe you need to prioritize a few crucial interactions. In any case, the more clearly defined your goals are, the better off you’ll be. And that’s true for any business interaction—not just social media.”

Sourced from BOSS Magazine

In News

6 Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2022

April 13, 2022 No Comments

By Ahava Leibtag

Email marketing is one of the most personal forms of digital marketing. In the wise words of Henry Ebarb, CEO and co-founder of Eightfold, “Getting access to someone’s contact information is about as close of a touch point as you can get to your customer.”

When users opt in, your organization interacts with them on a deeper level. Email makes it easier to gain trust, build loyalty and, most importantly, keep a steady flow of patient appointments.

Learn What NOT to Do in Email Marketing

Because it’s so important, how can you ensure you don’t make mistakes that break trust between your brand and your audience? Here are some of the top email marketing mess-ups to avoid this year.

Mistake #1: You Don’t Have a Targeted, Defined Audience

One of the first steps to any new email marketing campaign is to have a product or service to promote, as well as a defined audience for that product or service. Automation tools allow you to segment your subscriber list based on specific attributes, like age, gender and interests. Fleshed-out content, personalization and workflow will come later.

Once you know what product or service you’d like to promote, you can segment your list and define an audience to target. For example, to promote the COVID-19 vaccine, UCLA Health sent emails on a rolling basis to specific patient populations. They worked with population health to prioritize and invite the highest risk eligible patients first. Messages were segmented based on language preference (English vs. Spanish) as well as patient portal activation (active vs. inactive).

The campaign was a massive success; the unique open rate for the vaccine invitations was consistently above 60%.

Mistake #2: You Don’t Use Personalization or Automation Tools

Does your email marketing strategy begin and end with e-newsletters you send to a broad audience?

No single newsletter could possibly meet the needs of all subscribers. What’s the most efficient method of delivering the right content to different audiences? How will you know if you were successful? When you commit to marketing automation, the answers are at your fingertips.

Marketing automation uses tools and data within your CRM to deliver custom content based on your audience’s interests. Automation makes it possible to:

Respond quickly after someone subscribes by sending a welcome email.
Schedule content delivery so that you don’t have to manually coordinate every newsletter release.
Personalize messages by including the user’s name in the greeting.

Mistake #3: Template Design Isn’t a Priority

Do you recreate your emails from scratch each time you send one? Or maybe you use a generic template that doesn’t match your brand style or stand out in any way?

One mistake that some email marketers make is not prioritizing custom template design. You can streamline your email marketing efforts by taking the time (and budget) to create well-designed, professional templates. Then, you can run A/B tests to see which design templates resonate best with audiences.

This year, ditch the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) template builders, which have limitations and restrictions. Custom template creation gives you unique content blocks that look crisp and clean, yet on-brand.

Mistake #4: Your Emails Blend in With Your Competition

When it comes to email marketing, how bold are you?

When trying to stand out, simplicity rules. You have few words and little time to demonstrate that your email is worth a click. A thoughtfully-crafted subject line and snippet along with a good mobile experience can slow your subscriber’s roll so that they absorb every juicy detail.

Here’s how:

Start with a short, compelling subject line: Your subject line should create a sense of urgency without feeling spammy. And you have only 25 to 50 characters to do it. A busy subscriber will likely scan past “[Organization Name] Spring Newsletter.” But, “How to Feel Your Best This Spring From [Organization Name]” will likely pique their interest.
Write an enticing snippet: This is the first line of text after the subject line. Leaving it blank could result in an error message. Instead, use this small window of opportunity to share an interesting fact, summarize your email or highlight a new offering. It’s just one line, so be concise.
Use mobile-friendly design: Users are often opening your email on their phone, so keep things tight and clean. Succinct content and smart use of headers make for easy reading. And don’t go overboard with images. When they don’t display correctly, images become big white gaps that detract from your content.

Mistake #5: You Don’t Have Enough Content to Distribute Through Email

Once you’ve enticed users with your exceptional topic and easy-to-read format, they’ll expect regular emails from you. It can be challenging to keep developing fresh content — especially if you’re managing newsletters on multiple topics. But you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

How to feed the content beast:

Get personal: Introduce the people behind the products and services you offer. Staff interviews are easy to pull together and make for compelling content. This information may already exist in staff bios or clinician profiles, and all you need to do is summarize.
Repurpose existing blog and web content: UCLA Health has perfected this process. “We partner with our content editor to determine which pieces to repackage for email. We then write a headline, adjust copy, and add a call to action. The information goes into our template, and we resize images. Then we’re ready to send,” said Anne Machalinski, senior manager of marketing at UCLA Health.
Riff off newsletter articles that performed well: Compile a “Top 10” list at the end of the year highlighting popular articles. And write articles with follow-ups.

Mistake #6: You Set It and Forget It

Some newsletters will be more successful than others. Analytics provide valuable insights into what’s resonating with audiences and where there’s room for improvement. This information is available in real time, so check early and often — and be responsive to what the data shows you.

Jennifer Coffman, email marketing manager at Cleveland Clinic, told me, “If you’re not managing the campaigns and understanding the behaviours and overall data, it can affect your relationship with your audience and your company’s reputation. Don’t set and forget.”

Pull It All Together

In 2022, it’s time to rethink your email marketing initiatives. It’s time to ditch the common mistakes above and take your email marketing to the next level. Make this the year email marketing has the biggest impact for your business.

By Ahava Leibtag

Ahava is the president and owner of Aha Media Group, a content strategy and content marketing consultancy founded in October 2005. Ahava is passionate about content and prides herself on tackling the toughest content projects — from healthcare to higher education to hip-hop (seriously).

Sourced from CMS Wire

In News

7 Social Media Marketing Mistakes You’re Making

November 29, 2021 No Comments

By Hammad Akbar

There are billions of active social media users worldwide, and the number continues to grow by the day. A growth that has led to social media platforms becoming one of the most influential virtual spaces.

Traditional methods of marketing like TV commercials tend to be a one-way communication—brand to the customer. But social media marketing encourages engagement. It creates multi-way communication in that:

Businesses can communicate with customers
Customers can engage with the brand by offering feedback.
Customers can communicate with other customers by sharing posts.

As a brand owner or marketer, you get to reach a multitude of potential buyers in seconds, especially when using paid social media.

There is plenty you can gain from social media marketing. But if your efforts are not bearing any fruits, you could be guilty of some common errors most people make. Being aware of these social media marketing mistakes can help you correct and avoid them.

1. You Are Working Blindly

One of the biggest mistakes you could make in your social media marketing is shooting in the dark and expecting results. Instead, you need to take it with the seriousness you would take any other marketing campaign.

Create a plan—a clear social media marketing strategy. It’s the first ingredient of a successful social media account.

A social media marketing strategy will ensure that:

You are posting content that is relevant to your goals. It will prevent you from wasting your efforts and resources on a social media campaign that’s sure to fall flat.
You are scheduling and arranging posts early enough. Posting consistently helps you grow and maintain a strong organic online presence.

So, how do you create an effective strategy?

A simple guide is not going to cut it. You need a master plan that addresses:

What you want to gain from social media. A new source of leads? Brand awareness? If you don’t know what you want, you can’t get it.
Who you are targeting.
Your plan of action. What kind of posts will you make? How will you market the posts to reach your intended audience? Do you need to add more video content?
The team that will be responsible for maintaining your accounts.
The time and funds you will allocate to social media marketing.
Your key performance indicators.

Know what you want from social media and how you will get it. And you will be on the path to achieving your full social media potential.

2. You Are Targeting the Wrong People

You could have a super-plan in place. But if you are targeting the wrong audience, then again, you will have a case of wasted efforts and resources. You’ll end up with tons of followers who have little to contribute to your goals⁠—an audience that doesn’t represent your ideal customers.

Overall, Facebook is the most used social network worldwide.

However, this does not mean you should focus your marketing efforts on Facebook.

First, define your target audience. This is the market segment that is most likely to have an interest in your product or service. You can base it on age, income level, education, location, or behaviour.

If you are active on multiple social media channels, pay special attention to the platform popular among your target audience.

For instance, data shows that Instagram is most popular among 18 to 29-year-olds.

Pinterest is most popular among women, while Snapchat and Twitter are most popular among 18 to 29-year-olds.

And if you are in the B2B space, LinkedIn might work better for you.

People are quick to ignore irrelevant content. For this reason, try not to make assumptions about your target audience.

Study them, then customize your content to fit their needs and expectations. Your content should bring value to your audience and give them a reason to engage with it.

Your tone should also fit the social media platform you are using. The kind of content your target audience expects differs among platforms.

Facebook users, for instance, expect an informal, playful, and engaging tone. On the other hand, LinkedIn works best with a reasonably formal tone, and Instagram is mostly about aesthetics.

Maximize your reach of the target audience by using features like subtitles and captions. They make it easier for your audience to:

Watch your videos in sound-sensitive environments, such as offices or noisy places.
Comprehend dialogue where the participants are speaking fast.
Stay attentive, helping you pass your message across.
Access your content despite having hearing problems.

3. SEO Best Practices Are Not Part of Your Social Media Marketing

A mistake most brands make is ignoring the power of SEO in making their social media campaigns successful.

Just like you’re keen on SEO when creating blog posts, landing pages, and other content for your website, you should do the same with social media.

Practicing SEO can help your profile rank higher in search results. This drives organic traffic to your profile and grows your followers.

The amount of likes, shares, and comments your posts receive affects your social media ranking and reach. So, to start with, you need to post frequently and post high-quality and engaging content. Then make it easy for your followers to share your posts by including compelling CTAs.

Make use of keywords. Find the best performing phrases and words once you do your keyword research for your articles and blog posts. Then, use them in your social media posts.

Visual content is one of the strongest SEO techniques you can use. Use relevant and quality images, videos, and GIFs that load fast.

Taking the step to add subtitles to video and captions to images and GIFs also works in your favor. Google and other search engines cannot watch a video. But the search bots can crawl the text on it and index the video, making your posts more discoverable.

Put SEO tactics into practice, and you’re sure to experience an increase in your reach.

4. Excessive Brand Promotions With No Real Content

For most people, social media is a place to network and communicate, share opinions, get updated about current events, and get inspired.

So if you are using it only to promote your brand and post automatic backlinks to your website, you’re getting it wrong.

You want to create content that arouses the audience’s interest and triggers conversations.

Join conversations on hot topics, but steer away from anything divisive, such as politics. Instead, observe what is happening in your niche and what your audience is already discussing. Then create content that responds to these issues.

Aim at making most of your content valuable and interesting to your audience. And the rest can involve promoting your products or services, but with a lot of engagement and social interaction.

As you post non-promotional content, ensure that the quality is consistent. Unfortunately, most brands make the mistake of assuming any post is better than no post at all. But unlike a personal social media account, a brand’s account is subject to ruthless scrutiny.

One offensive post could make your consumers and potential leads unfollow you. Or, if you are too official, they could see you as boring and begin ignoring your posts.

Stick to posts that reflect your brand and connect with your target audience. Be sociable. And when you do promote your brand, do it subtly.

5. You Are Not Using Hashtags

The famous #hashtag. Almost everyone knows what it is. But few know how to use it properly, when, or even why.

A hashtag begins with the “#” symbol followed by a keyword, with no spaces or punctuations. They provide a way to label your content and associate a post with a particular topic.

Every time a user wants to filter relevant conversations on a particular topic or carry out a hashtag search, they can find your content on the topic. Thus, it helps your target audience find you.

Here are a few pointers for using hashtags:

Get specific with your hashtags. Generic hashtags like #sports will not get you the increased impressions or reach you seek. But #sportsshoes is a better choice.
Use hashtags to talk about trending topics and get your brand in front of thousands of people.
Be careful what you hashtag. So naturally, you want to stay away from sensitive topics that could make people question your brand’s values.
Keep your hashtags short and easy to remember.
Don’t overuse hashtags.
If you plan on starting a new hashtag, ensure that it’s unique and catchy. Something that people will remember when referencing your brand.

Hashtags are a powerful method to gain exposure on social media. They can strengthen your social media presence and help you market your brand more effectively.

6. Your Profile Is Faceless With No Human Interaction

Social media is all about connecting with other people. But a mistake most brands make is relying too much on automation.

Excessive automation could make you lose your human touch.

It’s essential to be present. Participate in the conversation in the comment section. It will improve the value of your social presence and help you build valuable relationships with your audience.

The kind of responses you make also matter. A brand account that is too corporate has no place on social media. When you use stock responses, your audience will know. And they will stop engaging with your posts.

Add a human touch to every post and comment you respond to. For example, when responding to a question from your audience, personally address the individual instead of using pre-crafted marketing and corporate messages. Be authentic, delightful, and inspiring.

You’re going to face some negative responses, that’s for sure, but you need to maintain your cool. Respond to any concerns the person in question may have in a friendly and polite way. This will prevent the conversation from turning negative, which can be damaging to your reputation.

Take every positive and negative comment as a chance to talk directly with a potential customer.

Avoid limiting your social interactions to the marketing department. Instead, involve other departments, such as billing and production. This will ensure prompt and comprehensive responses to your followers’ questions.

When you take the time to respond to comments, and not in a robotic way, it establishes strong connections with your followers, and they’ll like you more.

It’s also best to make personalized and meaningful interactions with the content of other people. This can range from influential professionals in your niche to experts who share the same views as your brand. It will increase the exposure of your content and give you wider access to your target audience.

7. You Neither Track Performance nor Have a Clear Call to Action

You can have entertaining, meaningful, and SEO-friendly content. But if you are not going to tell your audience what to do next, your efforts are going to waste.

Your audience needs the motivation to take the next step to become a customer.

Include a call to action in your posts. It could be an invitation to:

Visit your website.
Like, share, or comment on the post with their thoughts.
Sign up.
Shoot you an email.

Once you have CTAs in place, measure the success of your marketing efforts using social media analytics. You can use the metrics provided by the social media platform or use analytics software.

Tracking analytics can give you an extensive view of your social media performance. In addition, they provide actionable insights that you can use to improve your social media marketing tactics and woo the right customers.

Here are some essential analytics to track:

Analytics	What it entails
Awareness	How big are your current and potential audience? What are the demographics?
Engagement	How does your audience react to your posts? Is there any fluctuation in engagement, and what kind of posts cause the fluctuations?
Conversion	How many of your followers heed your call to action. Is the traffic that comes from social media to your website likely or not to convert?
Consumer	How does your audience feel about your brand?
Influence	Who is driving conversations about your brand? Do they get others to participate in these specific conversations?
Share of voice	What’s the volume of the conversation about your brand, and how does it compare to competitors?

Tracking analytics shows you the impact of your past actions. And you can use these insights to improve your social media marketing strategy continually.

Ready to Step up Your Social Media Marketing?

Have you been making any or all these social media marketing mistakes? Then, it’s time to remedy the situation.

Start by writing down your social media marketing strategy and target audience.
Next, create a social media calendar. Make a plan on how you will create meaningful, SEO-friendly, and share-worthy content that utilizes hashtags and CTAs. You don’t have to worry about your visuals. Instead, use Keevi, a powerful online content editor. Keevi will make your images, videos, and GIFs SEO-friendly, accessible, and high-quality.
Finally, measure the results of your social media marketing efforts, and make improvements where needed.

Take these steps, and you are sure to have your brand presence felt on social networks.

Feature Image Credit: Olenka Serfienko; Pexels

By Hammad Akbar

Hammad Akbar is the Founder & CEO at Keevi, a video content repurposing tool. He has extensive experience in the world of Digital Marketing, SaaS Application development, and building technology companies. In his short career, he managed to bootstrap two technology companies with minimum funds to multimillion-dollar revenues. When he’s not working, he likes to travel to new countries and learn about their local cultures.

Sourced from readwrite

In News

These 3 common marketing mistakes are poking holes in your funnel

December 16, 2019 No Comments

By Ben Jacobson.

From my perspective, it seems like most marketers are making the same mistakes – common funnel-draining mistakes that are fixable over just a few weeks or maybe months.

Are you converting as many people as your product is capable of converting?

It’s a question I think about a lot when I’m working on my marketing projects. Is there a gap between the quality of the product and the quality of my marketing? Is my marketing funnel underselling a phenomenal product?

It might seem like a silly question, but it’s something many marketers struggle with. Some 61 percent of marketers list “generating traffic and leads” among the top challenges they face, and 39 percent select “proving the ROI of our marketing activities.” And those are challenges that cripple the very core of a marketer’s purpose (to generate leads and improve ROI).

*Image source: https://www.stateofinbound.com/*

But from my perspective, it seems like most marketers are making the same mistakes – common funnel-draining mistakes that are fixable over just a few weeks or maybe months.

From my experience, these are three of the most common snafus.

1. You’re ignoring the facts (AKA data)

Perhaps no industry changes as quickly as the marketing industry. The psychology of why people buy doesn’t change, of course, but the methods do. Not long ago, for instance, only deluded marketers would have hedged their bets on the lead-generating prowess of LinkedIn. Now, it’s a platform representing 500 million members with tips emerging from every corner of the web with a quick “generate leads on LinkedIn” Google search.

Facebook advertising, SEO best practices, and even the up-and-coming Tik-Tok have changed and are consistently changing the marketing environment.

If you stop paying attention, you fall behind.

But that doesn’t just apply to the marketing space as a whole, it applies to your market specifically – the people who stand to benefit most from your products.

Every company is different, and so too is every market. And if you don’t pay close attention to how your prospects are interacting with your marketing touchpoints, you’ll convert less people than you could – it’s that simple.

Sadly, 74 percent of marketers admit that they don’t know how to track their data. Don’t be one of them. Install and fully understand Google Analytics, use a heatmap and A/B testing tool like VWO or CrazyEgg, and use UTMs to track links clicks. Your lead generation volume will thank you.

2. People are entering your funnel for the wrong reason

The bottom of your marketing funnel is going to leak like the Titanic after a long voyage if you don’t put the right people in that funnel.

From my experience, the reason that people sign up for your email list should be very similar to the reason that they buy your products, or at least related. If they sign up for your email list because they want to win a free trip to the Caribbean and then you try to sell them enterprise-grade IT automation software, it might not be the best fit.

Similarly, I’ve found that using PR to get mentions on sites relevant to your target market (i.e. where your prospects spend time) and working with influencers who already have a following full of your ideal customers are two great ways to ensure you’re attracting the right people to your funnel.

This point is well illustrated with the power of the Facebook pixel, as explained in this case study. Paleo Bakehouse was a modest home business based in Miami.

Looking to boost sales, the couple behind the business sought the help of Juice, a digital advertising agency, which changed up the way that Paleo Bakehouse was running their Facebook ads. Simply by switching campaigns to the conversion ad objective, adding a Facebook pixel to the client’s website, leveraging lookalike audiences, and retargeting stickier website visitors, they were able to make sure their paid media reached people who had already demonstrated interest in Paleo Bakehouse’s products. This change alone resulted in a 260 percent increase in purchases and over $311,000 in revenue lift.

Of course, that’s just one example of what can happen when you focus your time and energy on converting people who have signalled interest in your products. But this simple truth applies to all of your marketing efforts and your funnel as a whole. Attract the right people to your funnel in the first place, and they’ll be far more likely to buy your products when the time comes.

3. You don’t understand your ideal market (but you think you do)

It’s easy to assume that you understand your target market – that with some quick visualizations and inference-making, you’ll create a useful customer avatar.

And to some degree that’s true. There’s certainly something to be said for putting yourself in your target market’s shoes.

The problem is, 80 percent of consumers don’t feel understood by the average brand. Which means that you have to be the one that really gets them. But you know the most surefire way to understand your market?

Ask them what they want, what they fear, who they are, what they do, how many kids they have, why they’re on your list, and lots of other revealing questions. The more you really know about your market (rather than just think you know), the better you’ll be able to cater your marketing materials specifically to those people and their needs.

Surveys work wonderfully. So too does calling your customers, spending time in the forums where your target market hangs out – even looking at competitors who are trying to communicate with a similar market can help you understand the people you’re trying to convert.

ConversionXL is proof of this. After launching CXL Institute, the company watched as purchases and engagements plummeted month after month for a full quarter. As a final hail mary (before calling it quits), CXL used surveys to try and figure out why people weren’t engaging with the new product like they had expected. Eventually, they found out that people weren’t buying for two primary (and easy-to-fix) reasons: the price was too expensive and they didn’t have time to actually use it.

With that, they changed their targeting for the product to focus on bigger businesses with more generous budgets, and now, according to a case study from Hotjar, the CXL Institute’s business is healthy and sustainable. But they never would have known how to fix it if they didn’t take the time to understand their market.

Fixing your leaky funnel

The reality is, most funnels leak for only a few reasons – the same reasons. And it’s rarely because of a bad product (even a terrible product can sell like hotcakes with the right marketing) or lack of product-market fit. More often, it’s because you’re ignoring the data, people are entering your funnel for the wrong reasons, or you don’t fully understand your ideal market.

Fortunately, plugging those holes is relatively simple. Pay more attention to the data (and set up tracking if you don’t already have it), create interest consistency across the entire customer experience, and send surveys to your past customers.

With that, you’ll be head-and-shoulders above most other marketers.

By Ben Jacobson

Ben Jacobson is a marketing strategy consultant based in Israel. His specialties include social media and branded content for the B2B sector. Ben can be reached via Twitter @osbennn.

Sourced from TNW

In News

9 Most Common Hashtag Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

March 1, 2019 No Comments

By Daniela McVicker

Hashtags, they’ve become something like an ironic t-shirt print now. Everywhere you turn, people are using them, they’ve even become a part of our verbal dialect, hashtag weird.
As overblown as they are, they are essential to social media. With platforms like Instagram and Twitter, they really can allow your business ideas to grow and your service to be reached by many more people. However, the art of hashtags can be a tricky one to master. We’re here to help.
Instead of telling you what you should do, we’re here to tell you exactly what to avoid. If you find yourself doing them, just hashtag stop. Here are the 9 most common hashtag mistakes to avoid.

What are hashtags?
There was a time when they were used as a number sign, used in databases and cryptographic applications. In 2007, Chris Messina changed the meaning of the key all around.
They’re no used all over the world, as a type of link or tag for users on social media. They basically identify a keyword (or multiple) and the indexed into the realm of social media. They then become discoverable by the other users.
Agreed, they are a tiny bit overused in today’s social media mad world, but they are instrumental. They categorize specific messages, have become a marketing tool by many businesses and lead users to certain discussions and conversations that they wish to be a part of.
Here are just some of the things that you should avoid when using hashtags.

1. Using only the popular hashtags
Yes, you see something trending, and you join the wave. We get it. In theory, it makes total sense — using the ones that have the most followers. However, these won’t get you the results that you’re searching for.
Tagging your pictures with #love or #beauty will put you in a world of hundreds of thousands of posts. Don’t mistake the extra likes for anything meaningful — they usually come from automated robots.
If you don’t believe us, check it out for yourself. Post a picture with generic hashtags like, say, #followforfollow and #motivation and try to find your post amongst the millions of photos. It’s next to impossible and really won’t increase your popularity.
You should always seek to use more specific, relevant hashtags that will speak to your target audience. Looking into your industry’s keywords could help you massively with this.

2. Don’t be too #obscure, though
On the opposite end, you don’t want to use a hashtag that literally nobody knows about. This would be futile.
Yes, it could be beneficial to start your own hashtag and watch your brand grow with it. Initially, this won’t gain you any new visitors or customers or followers.
You really want to be finding that perfect balance between popular and obscure — something which has a couple thousand posts on it, enough for you to be seen, but not too little that nobody notices.
We promise, there are enough out there for you to find, you just need to be a little bit creative and check up on your competitors.

Using way too many hashtags
We’ve all seen it, people posting something which quite literally has a million hashtags on it. Do you need reminding? #Travel #Travelpictures #Travelgram #Instatravel…you know the rest.
Captions which have tonnes and tonnes of hashtags on tend to kill the message you’re trying to put forward. It can be seen as overkill or desperation. The majority of followers and likes you get aren’t ones who engage, shop or provide anything meaningful. They’re programmed, and will sometimes even unfollow you after a set amount of time.
The best copywriting services that know a thing or two about social media and efficient use of hashtags live by the mantra: “quality over quantity.” Using 1-5 hashtags will stop your post looking cluttered and will gain you actually positively interested readers, not just automated likes.

Not analyzing your hashtag use
Social media campaigns rely on hashtags. Without them, everything would be a little bit crazy. That being said, if you’re not analyzing your hashtags properly, it can lead you to quite the #confusion.
For example, you have a social media campaign in which your followers have to use a unique hashtag, that you created. In order to measure your reach, track your growth (and pick a winner) you will need to monitor your numbers carefully.
There are social media tools and platforms which can help you with this, as well as just a very eager eye. You don’t want any angry competition entries, either.
Social media marketing relies on analytics just as much as any other type of marketing including email marketing. So, don’t underestimate the power of the hashtag.

Not using any hashtags at all
You might feel like they look messy, or people will judge them, or whatever reason. Ignore all that, because the biggest mistake you can make is not using them.
Once you have a big brand name, tonnes of followers and organic engagement, the hashtags can come to an end. Yet, when you’re building up your brand, they will become your new #BestFriend.
The little tags should be seen as targeted exposure, and nothing less. Think of them as a search tool — something that people can find your profile and content with. Nobody is too good or too proud to utilize a hashtag, they’re a great marketing tool that will give you so many benefits.
Did you know that tweets containing 2 hashtags get 2x more engagement than those without? It’s quite impressive, and something you should completely get behind.

A lack of research
It’s really no use describing everything you see in your picture using hashtags. To make the most out of them, you need to do a little bit of research.
You should take a look into the world of hashtags, using tools like Ritetag and Tagboard. These allow you to look at trending hashtags and review the performance of your own.
Also, don’t forget to dive into the world of National hashtag days. Things like #SmallBusinessSunday #TransformationTuesday and #MondayMotivation could be great little time markers for you. There’s even #NationalSelfieDay and #NationalNutritionMonth…there’s a hashtag for every event, some might just be great for your business. Check out if there are any more relevant to you and your purpose.

Not trying out new ones
So, you found your perfect set of hashtags, and you use them in every single post. We hate to break it to you, your users notice this (and they get bored), and it isn’t gaining you any new exposure after time.
Never get too comfortable with your hashtags, social media is an ever-changing world, and you need to move with it. You might find some of the best hashtags that you used to begin, are now completely oversaturated or deserted.
There’s always room for new hashtags. Take a nice scroll through your timelines, see what other people are using and see if they’ll work for you. Switch up your current favorites every now and then, checking your analytics to see if they really worked for you.

Not localizing your hashtags
This is especially true for the brick and mortar businesses out there. If you want people to come to your shop, it’s not particularly useful to use hashtags that are only being seen by people hundreds of miles away.
Check out your local community, see what hashtags they’re using, build relationships and gain exposure.
Even something as general as #NewYorkCity might just attract one new visitor to your shop. There’re also location hashtags that will be relevant to your industry. For example, #NewYorkBloggers or NewYorkBusiness will be more condensed, but much more effective hashtags to use.
Side note: make sure to utilize that location button too — more people use that than you might believe.

Using hashtags that aren’t relevant
We touched on using hashtags that are really popular and too obscure, but what about the ones that just aren’t relevant.
Yes, you might have found a great hashtag, that has a few thousand posts — but if it isn’t relevant to you, it won’t help you at all.
Just think about your profile, your target audience, your goals. What hashtag would be really great to go along with this?
As an example, say you’re a new sustainable fashion shop. In today’s world, #sustainable will have thousands and thousands of posts, there’s a risk you won’t be found. Why not try #SustainableFashion or #EthicalDesigner? It’s a little bit more relevant, not so popular and will bless you with specific exposure.

Conclusion
It might seem like a lot, especially listed out like this, but it is actually straightforward. You can easily avoid these mistakes and utilize hashtags to your best ability.
Like with every kind of marketing strategy, there is a bit of a trial and error process. Some will work, some won’t work — emphasizing the importance of analytics and careful tracking.
The truth is, hashtags are the key to growing a following on social media, especially one that engages with you and your brand. So, what are you waiting for?

By Daniela McVicker

Daniela McVicker is a blogger with rich experience in writing about UX design, content planning, chief editor at StudyClerk.com and digital marketing. Currently, she is the chief contributor at Trustmypaper where she helps individuals and organizations improve their web content writing, design, and planning skills. Her posts are always packed with examples and actionable content that readers can put straight into the action.