Traditional marketing differs from digital marketing in many ways. They are different ideals with different sets of rules. And yet, a lot of people take tactics from traditional media and apply them to digital marketing, expecting the same result.
Fundamentally, traditional media is a one-way journey from media to consumer. The television, for example, shows an advert, the viewer watches it, perhaps they will consider what it says, perhaps it will prompt a sale, but you will never fully know.
Digital media on the other hand, allows for a two-way conversation. You release a product, people look, already implying an interest because it would have had to hit an algorithm or they went looking for it, and people respond in the comments.
This allows for a lot of conversation and freedom of movement. You can gain feedback from your customers in real time, perhaps implement suggested changes, fix problems, and, on top of all that, every bit of engagement is recorded. You will know who liked your product, why they liked it and what actions they took to support you, all in real time.
The only drawback is no one-to-one interaction with your audience, initially. Your winning smile will have to be depicted in a trailer, your persuasive chat will have to be fed into a blurb or social media. You will have to rethink traditional tactics that a car salesman would swear by.
Targeting a massive audience
Small or inexperienced businesses will often think that if you aim for a wide segment of an audience, you will surely get more leads that way. Maybe in traditional media they had a point, but even that is changing. When was the last time you saw a sports advert play during Say Yes to the Dress? Never, because the demographics rarely overlap. Casting such a wide net will just leave you irritated that you’re not gaining the audience you expected.
Content optimization doesn’t mean to fire in all directions. The beauty of digital marketing is that it will target who you most think will buy your product.
You can use algorithms, affiliate links, keywords and much more to hone in on your audience and make sure they see it.
Ignoring your market data
One major perk of online marketing is its in-real-time research. You can learn how customers found your product, what they liked about it and whether that all resulted in them buying it. Some businesses don’t use this data. They don’t switch out of an affiliate link that isn’t gaining footfall. They don’t swap out keywords that aren’t working. They don’t implement changes to the product that the customers recommend.
Your marketing data can tell you the location of leads, the type of customers you are attracting, what content encourages a purchase. All of that is valuable information you can act on. There are countless paid and free apps to help you extract this information and it will aid in future campaigns.
Being inconsistent
A brand, more than anything, requires consistency. Choose a few elements of your brand or product to promote and stick to them. Don’t veer off course by posting something that doesn’t suit your brand. A ski resort wouldn’t suddenly post about a sandy beach because you don’t want your customers going to, or even considering, a sandy beach. Post slopes, campfires, log cabins: pick your elements and drive them home.
The success of these tactics won’t happen overnight, so you have to keep to them. Digital marketing in particular relies on consistency and its easy to let one off-topic post dismantle an otherwise successful campaign.
Schedule and plan your posts beforehand so that you aren’t tempted to go off topic, and if you’re really desperate, make a second private account.
Ignoring the Search Engine Optimization
The main way to find anything on the internet is to search for it. It’s now second nature rather than putting in a website address, even if you know it. If your website isn’t on the first page of a Google search, it simply won’t be looked at. Things like domain authority will determine how far up you are on a Google search.
There are a number of ways you can boost this ranking and one is by doing your keyword research, which is the process of finding out what words or terms your target audience is looking for on Google. You can optimize your search strategy and rank higher on a Google search results page when you have identified the high-value keywords that your demographic audience is searching for.
Keyword research is just one aspect of SEO, with others including delivering targeted, high quality content, optimizing title tags and improving site’s loading times.
People are fickle on the internet, too used to professional websites that deliver in seconds. If you don’t meet that demand, they’re not going to stick around.
