9 Outdated Digital Marketing Practices You Should Stop Using
TechsPlace | While vintage and nostalgia may be popular in other industries, they are ineffective in digital marketing strategies. An image that went viral last week won’t appear in the search feed again next week. That’s gone for good. To keep up with the pace of modern online marketing, we must modify our marketing techniques and campaigns.
According to reports, 34% of startup failures are due to poor market fit, and 22% fail because they did not implement correct marketing strategies. So, save yourself from marketing disasters by removing these common outdated practices.
9 Most Common Outdated Digital Marketing Strategies That You Must Stop Using Immediately
1. Quality Over Quality
One thing that is correct to this date is that some companies upload a lot of content daily. Even though being consistent with content is good, overdoing it is another thing. When companies overdo it, they somehow miss the quality in between.
Overloading your blogs or website with a lot of content won’t help you gain exposure. Rather, it might backfire as your bounce rate may increase due to bad or average content. This will lead to a decline in ranking.
The same goes for social media marketing posts & vlogs. Posting regular videos won’t help much if you run a real estate company. It might be helpful in case of certain tasks that need to be done regularly. For example, a cleaning company may post shorts every alternative day or thrice a week.
Solution: Finding a sweet spot between quantity and quality would be best. This will vary with the type of industry and frequency at which you need to connect with users.
2. Old UI/ UX Design
Old ways won’t open new doors. This good old quote is so true for your app and website. Remember that all the ads, clicks, social media follow-ups, etc., lead to one place: your website landing page.
Now, imagine that it is outdated with a poor user interface. What do you think is going to happen? Obviously, any user who came to your website with high hopes will be disappointed and leave. This will lead to a decrease in dwell time. That’s no good.
Any lead generation and all ad payments will go in vain if the user leaves your website only because it was hard to find what they were looking for or it wasn’t opening correctly on their mobile or tablet devices.
Solution: You can upgrade your UI/ UX anytime. There are plenty of web portals that offer free template designs. However, while choosing one, be extra careful. Most of these templates are designed heavily & will take more time to open.
That will make your website look good but decrease the loading time. You can learn to create your website from scratch or hire a professional digital marketing firm. It will be a one-time cost as long as you are not asking for other services such as SEO optimization, creating & posting content for website and social media marketing posts, etc.
3. No Promotional Blogs
Suppose you have created a masterpiece blog article with original content that is getting more and more views daily. People come, read your blog, some even leave good reviews & then go. Nothing happens; it is blank.
Reason: There is no link at the end of the page to redirect them to your website or make them subscribe to your mailing list. You did not try to convert those people into potential future clients. Here, you are missing out on a golden opportunity.
Solution: You can link your blog to social media or attach it to your email list. For new users, it is best to have a subscribe option either at the bottom of the page, as a pop-up, or as static while the user scrolls your web page.
You can even give links to your products for users to look at or buy.
4. Focusing Intensively On New Leads
Did you know returning customers are less expensive to any brand than getting a new one? Yeah, that’s true. That’s why almost every brand tries to have a loyal customer and rewards them with points, coupons, or a gift with purchases.
Growing your customer base is good; however, maintaining good relations with the existing ones is great for your online business. Happy customers are likely to come back again. And a strong consumer base will boost your branding. This will eventually attract new customers to try your product & services.
Solution: Instead of focusing too much and overspending on new lead generation, you must create a better buying experience for your existing customers. You can integrate automated tools like AI-based chatbots to interact with your customers in real-time to provide them with the information they want.
This will reduce their waiting time. The customer will gain more faith in your branding, generating revenue for you. Remember that a happy customer is your best promoter.
5. Keyword Stuffing
This is something most commonly done throughout the website and by most people. You may be tempted to think that stuffing more keywords will help their marketing, but it will do the exact opposite for you.
You see, most of the time, content containing many keywords is hard to read. So, if any user clicks on your website and clicks back because there is no useful information or it is hard to understand, your bounce rate will increase, and dwell time will decrease. This is going to be bad news for you.
For your peace of mind, search engines have become smart to pick up these dirty tricks used by websites. If caught, your website may be rewarded with a penalty. This will further downgrade your ranking.
Solution: Try to create valuable content that keeps the user engaged, provides them with information, solves problems, and answers their questions. For effective use of keywords, try to put them in the title, meta description, subtitles, and heading. But refrain yourself from overdoing it.
6. Shady Data Collection
People are more concerned about their privacy and don’t like it when a company collects information about them without prior consent. Any email or message not subscribed to puts users in an uneasy position. Moreover, some companies even go overboard and purchase data from third-party client to push their marketing tactics.
Asking for private information about your customer may annoy or drive them to another brand.
Solution: Try to get the least information from your customers and optimize your data analysis using AI technologies that give more precise patterns and results without asking for too much data. While sending an email, be mindful of how many clicks it has embedded in it. Too many links will make your mail look like spam.
7. Non Engaging Contents
If you are writing to fill out the website and blog page, we are sorry to tell you that it may not work in your favor. Even if the customer clicks on the link, they might just as well click back to continue browsing for other relevant sites.
Solution: Stick to your industry and write engaging content about your online business. You can even give links to your product or ask readers to subscribe to your mailing list.
8. Neglecting Mobile Optimization
Nowadays, most people use cell phones to seek information about a product, buy, shop, or browse services. So, ensure that your website is smartphone-friendly.
Solution: Ask your web designer team to make your website responsive. This will enable it to open seamlessly on any device or any size. Remember to optimize your content and image files along with it.
9. Not Using Analytics Tools To Measure Growth & Success
Many companies just make their website and social media marketing profile, post stuff, and then leave. That’s not a good practice, especially if you are not measuring the outcome. Some of your posts may be working well, and others not. You can only know this by analyzing them on different parameters.
Solution: Multiple analytics tools are available, some for free, that you can integrate into your website to study, measure, analyze, and monitor your sales, leads, conversions, growth & effect on your revenue.
In Closing
As mentioned in the discussion above, these 9 techniques must go and should be replaced with their alternatives. Effective digital marketing strategies can play a crucial role in determining success and online conversion rates for online businesses with low entry barriers.
The best thing about online marketing is it keeps evolving with time. A method that was popular a few years ago is now an obsolete practice. If you need any guidance, contact a reputed digital marketing firm. We bet you will be surprised to know how much you have been missing.
Author and publisher at techsplace.com.
