What are common mistakes in a digital marketing strategy?

The most frequent mistakes include not having a defined marketing plan, relying on a single sales channel or social network, and not measuring the results of actions. It is also detrimental to rigidly stick to a plan without considering market changes or to collect metrics without making decisions based on that data. Recommended reading: [Digital marketing strategy: mistakes to avoid [Part 2]](/en/blogs/marketing/digital-marketing-mistakes-part-two).

How is an effective digital marketing plan defined?

An effective plan should start by defining the business's purpose and selecting a specific audience whose concrete problem will be solved. It is fundamental to align all SEO and social media actions with this purpose to maintain the course of business growth. Recommended reading: [Digital marketing strategy: mistakes to avoid [Part 3]](/en/blogs/marketing/digital-marketing-mistakes-part-three).

Why is it important to measure results in digital marketing?

Measurement is vital because what is not measured does not exist and cannot be improved. Knowing metrics such as conversion rate or engagement allows you to set aside personal preferences and objectively understand what aspects of the business are truly working for the audience.

What does it mean to diversify channels in a digital strategy?

Diversifying means not putting all your eggs in one basket, avoiding total dependence on a single client, industry, or social network. Cultivating a culture of experimentation allows companies to seek alternative revenue streams and distinct value propositions in the face of exceptional market changes.

How to adapt if a marketing plan is not working?

To adapt, it is necessary to maintain flexibility and use metrics as a constant thermometer of performance. If the data reveals that industry standards are not being met, goals must be adjusted, the market analyzed, and one must be willing to modify the original plan to avoid losses.

Digital Marketing Strategy: Mistakes to Avoid [Part 1]

If there's one positive thing we can take from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that we've had access to many webinars and online courses across various fields and levels. Unable to conduct business in person, interest has shifted towards digital marketing strategies, reaching users through e-commerce and social media, or towards the importance of usability and UX in lean times.

Hence, one of the most popular topics of the moment is digital marketing strategy. However, the focus is on showing what it is, while few talk about what we should avoid. Therefore, I invite you to reflect on who we are and what we do, beyond a specific action in both the digital marketing plan and for the growth of our businesses.

This publication is based on my online talk (available on video) for the New World Crafts virtual event, organized by the Handmade commission of the Guatemalan Exporters Association.

Let's look at the first five mistakes and suggestions to avoid them. I will publish two more articles soon so that it doesn't get too long and is easier for you to read.

#1 Not having a digital marketing plan

The context of the COVID-19 pandemic taught us that long-term planning is difficult, but it is essential that you consider the following:

Define your business's purpose (why it exists). Everything you do in SEO, paid campaigns, social media, mailing, or any other area of digital marketing, must be aligned with that purpose.
Select an audience, even if it's small. Your purpose has no reason to exist if you are disconnected from people. Even a limited audience, with names and surnames, is more concrete than thinking about bringing your purpose to all women between 24 and 45 years old living in a country, who have too many differences among themselves.
Solve a problem for that audience. Once the audience is identified, determine how you will make their lives easier or sell them a dream.
Have a digital marketing strategy and an action plan. Answer the question: how do I bring my purpose to that audience?

One more piece of advice: when you feel lost and stuck, remember your purpose and your audience.

#2 Sticking too closely to the digital marketing plan

To avoid this mistake in your digital marketing strategy, consider these tips:

Have a thermometer (metrics) that allows you to observe and measure how you are carrying out what you have proposed.
Learn to make decisions for better or worse. The day this thermometer tells you that something is not working, you must decide to stop doing things to understand why you missed the mark.
Observe the market to adjust your thermometer. For example, you have a goal for your website to convert 5%, but your industry benchmark reveals that a business with 2% conversion is already successful. At that point, you should ask yourself: does my site have everything necessary to meet industry standards?
Be flexible to adapt. You may not be selling well or your digital marketing actions may not be working for a reason other than what you think. Don't commit to an idea and pursue it to the end at all costs. Plans are made to be unmade.

#3 Putting all your eggs in one basket

To avoid this, here are some suggestions to improve your digital marketing strategy:

Don't depend on a single client or a single industry. When determining your audience, you must validate that it is the one that will bring you the best results, therefore, you must be willing to change.
Don't depend on a single social network or sales channel. Think about everything travel influencers experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as a high percentage of them monetized their activities related to that sector, giving advice on destinations or promoting brands. Therefore, if you don't have an alternative source of income or a different value proposition, in the face of any exceptional event, the business can go very wrong.
Cultivate a culture of experimentation. It is not necessary to have a ready-made recipe for everything, but you must be willing to experiment. For this, you need to know your audience and your business very well, to understand to what extent value can be generated and in what area you are well positioned. It is vital to be able to diversify, as, for example, the iconic photography company Fujifilm has done, which embarked on a business branch in pharmaceuticals, drawing on its experience with chemicals for image development. It is important to be flexible, experiment, and look for ways to constantly reinvent yourself.

#4 Not measuring

Don't make this mistake in your digital marketing strategy; follow these tips:

Become friends with numbers. Even if it's an area you don't master perfectly, you can't leave everything in the hands of other experts. You must be aware of financial numbers and digital metrics. Learn what a conversion rate is and how it's measured, what a good and bad rate is, what an email open rate is, what engagement is, etc.
What is not measured does not exist. You can be carrying out many actions, but if you don't measure your results, you will never know what you are doing well and what you are doing wrong.
Keep a cool head and don't get carried away by your own tastes, passions, or preferences. It's difficult because one always tries to put a personal touch on the company and the brand, but not everything you like will satisfy your audience. In this case, I can share an experience from a few years ago, when a partner and I created a stationery brand targeting a premium segment of people who love to write on paper. We built an e-commerce and had good metrics, but it wasn't scalable because the local market reached a ceiling and didn't grow. Why did that happen? In part, because we liked to write on fine, high-quality paper, but most people don't look for that; they just want notebooks and planners with pretty covers, and the interior doesn't matter as much. So, the price we charged for a high-category product didn't have as much room in the market, and there was a limit that prevented us from making a living from it if we focused on such a product. The solution was not to look for more ideas, carry out other actions, or invest more, but to question the product and give the proposal another twist, which requires keeping a cool head.

#5 Measuring and not taking action

There's no point in looking at the same metric and doing nothing. Therefore, in your digital marketing strategy, apply the following:

Ask yourself "why" 5 times. This is a method to take each metric and think about what it tells us, why this is happening. For example, the mailing campaign has a very low open rate: is the title bad? Did I send it at the wrong time? Is my database of poor quality? etc. If my database is of poor quality, why is that happening? Because I haven't updated it. Why haven't I updated it? Because I don't have a process for it. And so on... If you ask yourself "why" 5 times, you're sure to come up with many solutions.
Eliminate non-actionable metrics. If you've been measuring the same thing for six months and haven't done anything with that data, you should discard it and look for another that allows you to define actions. For example, I'm measuring social media followers, which is a "vanity metric." I check it every month and know I've reached five thousand, but I don't do anything about it. What good is it to me? I should pursue another path, such as: how many of these followers are interacting with my posts, and how much traffic am I getting from my social media to my website? If I have five thousand followers and I see that only ten have reached my site, this tells me much more.
More than a metric, seek a purpose. In another era, I worked in large companies where we had many metrics to measure whether we reached growth goals, customer satisfaction, or sales levels. But there are two situations: you can reach the goal if it's achievable, you put in the effort, and you take coherent actions; however, it's likely that you won't achieve it, which doesn't necessarily mean you've done everything wrong or that you should abandon your digital marketing plan. Perhaps those goals weren't aligned with your business's purpose, and you have achieved other things, such as learning to detect if you are systematizing your actions and tracking them. If you are capable of learning, you are already doing more than simply meeting a goal.