Top 10 Biggest Online Marketing Mistakes

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The cyber-world has opened new doors to businesses, allowing them to reach audiences across the globe and increase sales monumentally. Those who decide to take advantage of doing business online know the importance of having a successful online marketing plan. They also realize that's not an easy task. Countless businesses have tried and failed because of mistakes they made in their marketing strategies.

If you are planning to use the web to market your company, you should know these pitfalls and how to avoid them. Here are the top ten biggest mistakes made by online marketers:

Delivering old news.

One of the most important rules of online business is keeping your content up to date. You have a very small window in which to capture your visitor's attention, so make sure what you're showing them is current. Nothing drives visitors away faster than logging onto a website in July and seeing promotions from last Christmas. If you want to reel them in and keep them engaged, then keep it fresh.

Not keeping up with technology.

The internet changes almost daily, so if you want your online marketing campaign to be successful, you have to be able to adapt to those changes and keep up. If your strategy doesn't evolve, your business will likely be left behind and quickly forgotten.

Underestimating the value of viral marketing.

One of the most important aspects of offline marketing is valuable word-of-mouth referrals. Marketers who take their campaigns online, however, often forget that this also plays a crucial role in a web strategy as well. Typically referred to as viral marketing, you can employ techniques such as offering two for one promotions or perks to customers who refer a friend. These are simple and relatively inexpensive ways to get your business noticed.

Making things too complicated.

Offering an option for visitors to provide their email address or sign up for your newsletter is a great tactic to gather their information for future marketing opportunities. But if they have to click through 12 different pages to do so, it's more likely that they'll give up and leave well before providing their information so keep it simple if you want to see results.

Giving in to the temptation of spam.

It can be tempting to take the easy way out and employ not so legitimate marketing techniques, like purchasing email addresses, but if it's not ethical it will come back to bite you in the long run. Remember - once you've earned the label of 'spammer', it'll be almost impossible to shake and you'll likely find yourself unable to ever run another email campaign. It's not worth it.

Letting non-converting visitors get away.

A good online marketing campaign should consist of two parts - first getting visitors to your site, and then going after the ones who leave before buying. This second step is often forgotten by online marketers so they miss out on opportunities that could set them apart from the competition. rel=nofollow Retargeting is a marketing technique that works by capturing information about your visitors and using it to display your ad to them as they surf the web. By remarketing to them again and again you can remind them to come back when they're ready to buy.

Forgetting to measure.

You may have spent a lot of time and money developing a top-of-the-line marketing plan, but if you're not regularly measuring its performance you're probably not achieving the results you desire. Measuring and evaluating your plan's results will help to ensure that what you're doing is working and determine where you may need to make changes to realize the most profitable outcome.

Confusing traffic with results.

This is where regular measurement and evaluation of your campaign come into play. Getting a ton of traffic to your site doesn't necessarily mean you're marketing plan is working. It's customers you're after, so make sure you don't confuse the two. Use the results of your frequent analysis to tweak and adjust your strategy until you start seeing the conversions you want.

Believing that 'one size fits all'.

A marketing campaign that works for one company may be completely wrong for you. That's why it's so important that you spend the time to customize your marketing strategy to best suit your business and most effectively reach your audience...

Being afraid to ask for help

Not everyone has the expertise or the time to develop and maintain an effective online marketing plan. That's why there are firms that specialize in this sort of thing, and can help you build a customized marketing plan that will get the results you desire. There's nothing wrong with admitting that you're in over your head and need help.

In order to succeed in business, particularly in the world of internet technology, you must be able to develop and execute a good online marketing plan. By avoiding the ten mistakes outlined above, you can escape the fate that countless businesses have suffered and end up with the profitable results you desire.

Rebecca Daneault is an independent contractor who's objective is to develop and maintain long term, mutually beneficial partnerships with her clients, while providing superior administrative support utilizing her proven abilities and multiple years of extensive experience in all aspects of administrative functions

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