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More people are doing online marketing badly…

Author's avatar By Dave Chaffey 18 Jul, 2013
Essential Essential topic
Digital strategy development

What are the most common, most heinous online marketing mistakes?

More people are doing marketing badly according to Seth Godin’s recent post.

Seth-Godin-marketing-mistakes

It got me thinking that with the Content Marketing Avalanche, more people are now also doing online marketing badly. It’s inevitable with the need to reach customers across more and more touchpoints across paid, owned and earned media.

So what are the most common mistakes. Here are 10 I see all the time, from more strategic to practical, in the economic, inimitable Godin style…

  1. Not having a strategy for digital channels - here’s 10 reasons you do.
  2. Not setting goals, not measuring or optimising site performance .
  3. Thinking that online success is about following the latest shiny marketing tools like Vine or Instagram video when it’s all about building a brand online.
  4. Creating product-centred, not customer-centred sites with a clear online brand value proposition.
  5. Creating digital or Ecommerce silos, preventing an integrated marketing approach.
  6. Creating sites and presences, not creating brand experiences that add value to the customer.
  7. Not responding appropriately to social media customer service (or email enquiries).
  8. Typos on sites, email and social - we’re all guilty of this even with checks.
  9. 404s - I recently worked on a site which had tens of thousands of not-found pages a month. No longer.
  10. Not knowing about the mistakes about as a result of what my co-author of [amazon-product text="Emarketing Excellence" type="text"]0415533376[/amazon-product], PR Smith calls “Sloppy Emarketing”.

What are the worst mistakes you see which “get your goat” or should be avoided?

Are there any you see on Smart Insights we should try harder to avoid?

Author's avatar

By Dave Chaffey

Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.

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