Even a small marketing mistake can cost your business a lot of money. In fact, there isn’t much reason to put the time, effort, and money into digital marketing if you’re not going to do it right from the start.

Instead of outlining how to do digital marketing the right way, we’re going to discuss the five most common mistakes business owners make. Addressing exactly what went wrong will help you improve your marketing efforts and avoid making these mistakes again in the future.

1. Failing to Set Goals

What exactly do you want to achieve from digital marketing? You’ll have a difficult time getting any results without a clear plan or strategy. In other words, you need to set solid digital marketing goals.

Setting goals before beginning your marketing campaign will help you measure its effectiveness. Goals allow you to see what is working and what isn’t. Work performance thresholds into your plan so you have clearly defined goals to strive towards.

2. Not Spending Enough                                                 

Digital marketing is one area where many businesses think they can bootstrap their efforts and get by with minimal spending. Yet social media, template websites, free email platforms, and SEO can only get you so far. Sure, this is one area where something is better than nothing, but the ceiling for growth it low if you’re afraid to spend money.

Putting more money into your marketing campaign will bring in more money down the road. Whether this is through paid advertising or hiring experienced manpower, a larger marketing budget speaks for itself. Just understand that these things take time. You won’t get return on your investment right away, but you will in the long run.

3. Focusing Only on New Visitors

It’s easy to get sucked into thinking that new eyes on your site is all that matters. Yet first time visitors generally aren’t the ones spending the big bucks. Research proves that repeat visitors almost always spend more money on each purchase. Repeat visitors also tend to convert at a higher rate.

So don’t be a business that focuses only on new customers. Ensure that a large part of your marketing efforts are directed at current customers. Email marketing and display advertising are two of the most effective tactics used to target repeat customers.

4. Creating Content Without Value

Seriously, this is digital marketing 101. If the content you’re creating doesn’t have any value, why are you creating it? It might have initial success but will soon fizzle out without many conversions.

Simply put, visitors to your website want to invest their money with you because they know you’re an expert in a specific industry. If you create content that doesn’t demonstrate this expert knowledge, visitors won’t see any value in you. In addition to unique content with quantitative data (think relevant statistics), include infographics, graphs, animations, photos, and videos to reinforce your ideas.

5. Not Understanding Your Audience

A lot of businesses, especially new ones, jump head on into digital marketing without actually knowing who they’re marketing for. What’s your business’s audience? Who should you gear your marketing efforts towards?

Narrowing your audience down will allow you to tailor your marketing efforts specifically for them. Sure, you might not reach as wide a range of people, but you will reach the people that actually find value in your product or service. And these are the people that will actually convert from visitor to customer.

Your Brand’s Marketing Needs Are Unique

Building a brand is tough work. It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to pay off. So don’t let the five common mistakes above slow you down.

Understand that your brand’s marketing needs are unique. Incorporate the information above into a solid plan that focuses on your company specifically. Dig down to understand your brand as well as your audience and your marketing efforts will shine.