3 Fatal Online Marketing Mistakes

Having some valuable experience under my belt, these 3 fatal online marketing mistakes I identify have become much clearer over the past eight years. Here they are:

The 3 Fatal Online Marketing Mistakes

#1 Website Dehydration

#2 Email Marketing Malnutrition

#3 Social Media Malaria

I’ve been privileged to help many clients venture into the Internet jungle in search of the elusive trophy known as online marketing success. What is this online marketing success? It’s the growth of your business’ bottom line as a direct result of your online marketing investment of time and money.

I’ve also come to understand that I need to do a better job of laying out what it takes to successfully embark on an Internet Safari, so that finding that trophy is viable. A few clients I have helped begin their jungle adventure have fallen prey to these mistakes. Avoid them so you won’t meet the same fate.

Like any jungle safari, the search for and capture of a worthy trophy is not for the weak hearted. This is no walk in the park. Regardless of how many ‘success stories’ you come across that make it sound easy, it never is.

In fact, many business owners enter the Internet jungle never to be seen again.

#1 Website Dehydration

This is probably the most common internet jungle condition. Your online marketing safari gets off to a great start with a newly developed or upgraded website. The excitement of entering the Internet jungle soon begins to run dry because of a lack of the most basic sustainer of life… water.

Life giving water in the Internet jungle is content. Without fresh original content, any website will soon shrivel up and die of thirst. Just like we need consistent hydration while we’re on the hunt, your website needs consistent hydration in the form of new content.

Content is your blog articles, new site pages, images and videos, and comments by site visitors. Without it, your site will suffer from dehydration and underperform. Most likely your traffic will drop and your search engine rankings will soon follow.

Proper Website Hydration

We recommend to clients that they add fresh, original content on a weekly basis. This is the bare minimum to stay hydrated. In addition, provide ways for site visitors to interact by sharing comments, reviews or guest posts. These add electrolytes to your hydration so you can endure the grueling Internet jungle long-term.

If you cannot create your own content, you will have to outsource. A good freelance content creator will charge you from $100-$300 for a researched 300-500 word article. Most require a commitment of 1-4 articles per month.

#2 Email Marketing Malnutrition

The jungle requires a healthy diet in order to fight off infections disease. This safari takes you through dense, overgrown vegetation. It’s easy for you to get lost to the point where you’re no longer visible to your customers. Your food supply dwindles rapidly and you begin to feel the impact in the form of low cash flow and loss of customers to competition.

Remedy Email Marketing Malnutrition

Your online marketing needs the nutritional balance of a well-managed email marking campaign. It begins by building your list muscle with a steady diet of new email leads. It takes well thought out incentives to capture these leads.

Of course, you need to provide a steady diet of value to your list. A good way to manage this is to link back to the content you are adding to your website. Also providing online promotional codes for sales and specials will track your customer interests… what they value and what they don’t.

Your tracking skills will need to improve to take advantage of the data your list provides. Are you honing in on your trophy, your target market?

#3 Social Media Malaria

Malaria is not virus. Malaria is a parasitic infection spread mostly by mosquitos, especially in the tropical jungles. Your Social Media use can become a parasite that sucks time away from you and you customers, or it can become the viral explosion tool it has the potential for.

If you didn’t know it by now, Social Media posts that go ‘viral’ is a marketing dream. It’s like bagging the world record trophy jungle animal you are hunting. This happens when something posted via your Social Media is shared or viewed over and over again, eventually finding its way to the nightly National News broadcast.

But let’s be realistic. There’s only one world record. Most of us are happy to hunt down any kind of online marketing success. This is where your Social Media needs to be a virus instead of a parasite. It needs to be like the genetically engineered mosquito that kills the bad stuff, so the good stuff thrives.

Social Media Malaria Cure

How do you create a healthy, vibrant online community? Like many diseases, it takes a lot of research to identify, isolate and find a cure for your social media malady. Your branding should evolve from your customer persona and be the fabric of your social media platforms.

Knowing who your customer is will determine what to post on your social media accounts. Take a look at your competition. You might find this is a weak area for them that you can take advantage of. Or you may find they have a thriving social community and develop an understanding of how they created it through their social media management.