With Halloween creeping around the corner, our attention turns to what’s spooking us out in the digital sphere and, more specifically, in the delivery of marketing campaigns. From lack of planning to misevaluation of success, key flaws continue to haunt current campaigns, so here’s our list of the top four fear-inducing failings of many marketers – and how to avoid them.
1) Neglecting the discovery phase of a campaign
Many businesses forget the crucial early stage of the buying journey – the discovery phase – failing to remember that 60 per cent of the buying decision is made before the customer makes an enquiry. Potential customers are constantly researching the market, so you should be researching them too, in order to find out who they are and what they want; otherwise, how are you supposed to attract them?
Investing a substantial amount of time and resource into research – which might include competitor analysis, Google Analytics, user testing and focus groups or surveys – at the outset of a campaign will provide the best grounding for the development of appropriate content, ultimately yielding a more successful return in the long run.
2) Not using the channels you ought to for your campaign
As time goes on, it becomes more and more clear that the most successful campaigns are those that cover as many channels as appropriate – a fact that should go without saying. However, many businesses continue to limit the channels they utilise and therefore inhibit the campaign’s success. This purely tactical approach – which often comes from simply thinking inside the box or allowing budget to determine the nature and breadth of a campaign – involves cherry-picking affordable services, rather than strategically planning an integrated campaign, which uses what’s available to the best possible effect.
A recent review by HubSpot showed that campaigns that integrated four or more digital channels outperformed single or duo campaigns by 300 per cent, generating significantly more exposure – a statistic that demonstrates the importance of a comprehensive approach when it comes to campaign planning.
3) Forgetting seasonality when managing PPC budgets
When it comes to PPC, relevance is everything. Understanding and taking advantage of peaks and troughs in audience’s interest across the calendar is vital for paid search marketers looking to optimise their campaigns, yet too many PPC professionals still issue generic adverts to arbitrary timescales.
A constant consideration must be how to get the right copy in front of the right people at the right time, so marketers need to analyse historical data in order to take advantage of shifting, but predictable, buyer behaviour. This, in turn, will help when discovering how to achieve objectives, and how to budget accordingly.
A key factor impacting PPC budgets, bidding and conversion rates is seasonal trends, so it’s important to be aware of your product and which time of year people are searching for it. Seasonal changes to headlines, calls to action and specific landing pages will result in increased web traffic and conversions all year round. Likewise, managing bids and budget in accordance with seasonal changes, while finding the right balance between cost and volume of high-quality traffic, will make sure you get the biggest return on your investment.
4) Misevaluating campaign success
One particularly scary aspect of digital marketing is how high the percentage is of marketers either tracking campaign success incorrectly or not tracking it at all. What’s especially shocking is that in 2015, some marketing professionals are still preoccupied with rankings as the sole measurement of success. In addition, according to HubSpot, 52 per cent of marketers are also not tracking sales revenue as a marketing metric.
These frightening facts reinforce how some people are playing it safe, employing old school tactics, without consideration for the constantly-changing landscape of the market. These points also demonstrate that, to be truly successful online, you can’t operate in silos; you must take an integrated approach to marketing in order to generate the best possible results and track them appropriately.
With a bit of careful planning, thinking outside the box and adapting to the market, your product and even the seasons, you can ensure your brand keeps its finger on the promotional pulse and avoids the marketing graveyard!
By Daniel Nolan, managing director at theEword.
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