5 Reasons Your Digital Marketing Isn’t Working

You thought you took all the right steps to put your small business on the path to success. You hired a marketing director. You created social media profiles for your business. You always try out the latest marketing trends. And you are spending more money than you can afford on digital marketing initiatives. So why is it that your digital marketing isn’t working?

If you are frustrated with the results of your current digital marketing, you are not alone. According to HubSpot’s 2021 State of Inbound Survey results, nearly 40 percent of marketing specialists are unable to prove the ROI of their digital marketing campaigns. And, over 60 percent of respondents reported that they struggle to drive traffic to their website and generate leads.

Fortunately, you can put your small business on the path to digital marketing success with a few simple steps. The first and most important of these steps is to pinpoint the barriers that are preventing your efforts from producing desired results. For many growing businesses, these barriers reflect a lack of direction and planning by your marketing manager or digital marketing agency. Below are five reasons why your digital marketing isn’t working.

Reason 1: You have no digital marketing strategy

“Nearly half of marketers have active digital marketing programs, but no defined strategy at all. The other half is divided between those who have a stand-alone digital strategy (17%), and those who have integrated it into a more general marketing plan (34%). This is the way it should be, for more advanced marketers, for whom digital marketing has become ‘business as usual’.”

- Jeff Bullas, Keynote Speaker and Bestselling Author

No one ever said that creating a digital marketing strategy would be easy. But without a repeatable system in place to keep your pipeline full, your opportunities will be limited and your sales will suffer. In short, you are setting your business up for long-term failure.

There are many reasons why business owners and/or marketing directors fail to develop a strategy. In the case of business owners, they may not know why a strategy is important or how to develop one. And some small business owners wear many hats and may simply lack the time to build a strategy.

But there is no excuse for marketing directors who have often been educated about the importance of developing a repeatable marketing system. In spite of their training, many marketing directors forge ahead haphazardly, trying out the latest trends and tactics. Others seem to be stuck in a time warp, using the same stale tactics because “This is the way we’ve always done marketing.”

Regardless of the reasons behind the lack of a marketing strategy, your business will never reach its potential unless you take the time to identify your target audience and map out a scalable, repeatable strategy.

Reason 2: You lack a social media plan

“It’s not enough to leave a profile blank! You need to contribute to the platform and build connections…No matter what social network you’re on, the basic guidelines still apply. You’ll want to connect with friends and followers by asking questions and responding to comments.”

- Neil Patel, Co-Founder of Neil Patel Digital

Being on social media just to be on social media will not help your marketing efforts. You need a social media plan that goes beyond setting up a profile for Facebook and LinkedIn. You need to have a purpose for each social media channel and a means of executing your plan each week.

Unfortunately, too many business owners and marketing managers lack a sound social media plan. They have no social media strategy and are haphazard at best in their efforts to manage their social media sites. Here are some of the top social media mistakes businesses make:

• Only allocating a few minutes each day to social media
• Inconsistent Posting
• Incomplete company information (especially contact information)
• Ignoring feedback and comments people post on your sites
• Creating a profile that is overly corporate
• Engaging in constant self-promotion
• Posting content that is not useful, helpful, or relevant to your followers
• Failing to track social media analytics

Reason 3: Inconsistent digital marketing campaigns

“In a survey of marketing directors, 91% agreed that executing successful digital marketing efforts requires adherence to a clear brand positioning. Despite this truth, most brands fail to consistently develop their digital tactics with brand positioning in mind.”

- Mitch Duckler, Managing Partner of FullSurge

Consistency is a must when executing a digital marketing strategy. In the digital marketing world, there are three types of consistency that you should strive to maintain: consistency with buyer personas, consistency with communications, and consistency throughout the customer journey.

Failure to maintain consistency in these areas will hinder your brand’s ability to be recognized on several channels in the same fashion. Here are some specific ways that inconsistency can contribute to a failed digital marketing campaign:

• Inconsistent timing of messages: Launching a blog is great. But if you do not add blog posts on a regular basis, your customers may become disengaged. Even worse, their buying confidence in your company may erode if they begin to wonder whether you have the resources or focus to maintain your own website.
• Inconsistent buyer personas: Failure to stick to a firmly established buyer persona can cause confusion and tarnish the image you are working so hard to convey. For example, if your company voice is that of an established expert, you want to make sure that your content is not casual or comical in some forums and educational in others. Consistency in your branding allows your target audience to become familiar with your company more quickly.
• Inconsistent customer journeys: Some companies do a great job of making a stellar first impression. But then their efforts tail off during the sales cycle and post-sale part of the journey. Make sure that you maintain a cohesive approach with your customers throughout the entire customer journey.

Reason 4: You are always looking for shortcuts

There are no shortcuts to success in the world of digital marketing. Unfortunately, some marketers always seem to be desperate for a shortcut to stardom. They are unwilling to invest in the time and resources needed to produce top-notch results. Instead, they may turn to Black Hat SEO or dive into the latest new “sure thing” without proper investigation.

Cutting corners is never a good strategy in the digital marketing world. And while these tactics may result in a short-term spike in activity, they typically do not deliver long-term results and may land your company in trouble. Here are five commonly used shortcuts that can sabotage your digital marketing plan:

• Buying ready-made email lists of customers
• Failing to develop target personas
• Focusing on quantity over quality when building a list of followers on social media
• Engaging in keyword stuffing when preparing content
• You never follow up on your initiatives

Reason 5: You fail to monitor your campaigns

If you are not tracking the results of your digital marketing campaigns, then your business is destined for mediocrity. If you are not reviewing your marketing results, you will never know why your digital marketing isn’t working. Neil Patel summed up this trend when he stated, “A lot of people fail miserably at marketing — and they don’t even know why they’re failing.”

Some companies have begun to monitor their campaigns but are not monitoring them correctly. A recent article published by Harvard Business Review provides a glimpse at some of the reasons why marketing analytics have failed to live up to its promise. The article unveils two key steps that businesses fail to take when using analytics.

First, they put the cart before the horse. They begin gathering data before they know why the data is even needed. Second, they lack a 360-degree view of their customers. They have skipped over the important task of getting to know their customers’ habits and preferences. Getting to know your customers is vital to generating desirable results for any marketing campaign.

Effective digital marketing monitoring should involve a plan that is based on the marketing technique and a clear definition of the channels you want to track. Finally, you need to have a clear idea of the metrics you would like to measure, as this will guide you toward the proper measurement tools to use. If you are omitting any of these steps, then it should be no surprise that you are struggling with your digital marketing efforts.

Remember, what is not measured is missed.

Your Digital Marketing isn’t Working: The Bottom Line

There is no fast track to digital marketing excellence. You cannot expect instant success just because you hire a marketing manager and create a social media profile. And if you don’t monitor the results of your marketing campaigns, you will never know which initiatives are paying off and which are failing to produce expected results.

By reading this article, you have already taken the most important step toward improving your digital marketing results. Understanding the most common reasons why your digital marketing isn’t working is crucial to developing a strategy that will deliver stellar results. The next step is to identify the specific measures that will help you transform your digital marketing approach. We invite you to check out our next article, which will uncover the keys to a successful marketing campaign.

This article was first seen on Jefflizik.com