The world has since gone digital, and as a result, a lot of businesses have capitalized on internet marketing strategies as a means to promote their brands and attract more customers to their business.
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Internet marketing is a form of marketing that leverages digital channels, including emails, social media, websites, and search engines, to reach a target audience.
More people, as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, spend their time online and would rather shop and conduct business from the comfort of their homes. This is where internet marketing comes in, as it is one of the most convenient and effective forms of advertising in this digital age.
In as much as internet marketing can open up a whole new range of customer base, doing it wrongly might actually cause more harm than good for your brand and business. So how do you tell if your internet marketing efforts are being sabotaged or if they are producing the desired results?
Here are simple tips that can help you know if your internet marketing strategies are being sabotaged.
1. Your internet marketing is attracting the wrong people
Although the goal of internet marketing is to increase traffic for your site, build your brand, and increase revenue, when the wrong people are signing up, it is usually an indication that something is wrong.
You might have run a nice, attractive campaign and gotten a lot of buzz going on about your brand but if the people signing up are not part of your target market then your marketing strategies need to be readjusted.
These people may be interested in your content for different reasons such as research, curiosity, or so on, but they are not necessarily interested in your product or services.
Having people outside your target market sign up is also a good thing as it shows that your marketing efforts are working and some of them might turn out to be your best customers down the lane. But if 50 – 70% of your leads are from the wrong geographic area, profession, income level, interest or so, then your internet marketing strategy isn’t working.
2. Leads are few and far between
For example, you started your internet marketing 2-3 months ago and you are having just 5 website leads every month, this is an indication that your marketing efforts are not very effective. If your social media and paid promotions have high engagement and click-through rates, but they are not showing a lot of lead conversions, then it could be because your prospects are not ready to commit yet.
Although the fact that your promotions have good engagement and are generating click-through shows that they are working to increase brand awareness and getting more traffic to your website, you may need to re-evaluate the focus of your campaigns.
A good internet marketing campaign aims to generate more leads and ultimately more revenue and if it’s not doing exactly that then it has been sabotaged.
3. Backlink Profile Problems
Your backlink profile describes the sites that link to your website. These are the sites that see your content as authoritative enough that they can entrust their visitors to you. Backlinks are very important for your search engine optimization.
Google and other search engines monitor which sites link to you. Backlinks from reputable sites show that your content is valuable and worthwhile, while those from spam sites are seen to likely lead to poor quality sites and thus can reduce your ranking on search engine result pages.
So, as you can see, backlinks are very important and can also tell you if there is a problem with your internet marketing. If your backlink profile is filled with websites that your target market wouldn’t visit, then there is an issue, but if the sites are reputable sites, they will still give you a search engine optimization (SEO) boost.
Internet marketing is not just about reaching as many people as possible with the information about your product and services, but it is about reaching the right target market to ensure increased sales and revenue. So if your backlink profile is populated by people outside your target population, then you might not get the expected result from your internet marketing.
Generating a backlink profile and conducting a link audit is easy and convenient and you can use various tools such as
a) Ahrefs
b) MOZ
c) Uber suggest
e) Majestic
f) SEMrush
The sites leading to you are indicators of who your marketing is reaching, so if you are targeting bankers and are getting backlinks from universities, then there is a problem.
4. No one is sharing your content
If social media marketing and content marketing are part of your internet marketing strategies then getting people to share your content is very important.
If you are producing top-notch and timely content, then influencers in your niche will share it unless of course, which isn’t frequent, they don’t like you or have a bias towards your business. But, most times, if people are reading your content and not sharing it, then you are not producing quality content and your marketing is failing.
Take for example you are on Twitter or Facebook and you see great content that catches your attention, what do you do next?
You share, or retweet with your followers or friends and that exposes that particular content to a different set of people.
Now imagine that was a tweet about your brand, this would definitely increase your brand awareness and in the long run, your sales.
So if you want to increase your brand awareness, then blog towards that goal by creating great content that will get people talking about your brand. But if that still does not work, here are techniques for promoting your content without spending any money.
5. Bad quality website traffic
Some internet marketing strategies may be geared at generating more traffic for your website. Although it is an important indicator of who is getting to your website and if they are in your target market, it is not the bottom line, as more traffic doesn’t necessarily translate to more interactions or sales.
Quality website traffic is an engaged audience. Engaged website visitors tend to visit multiple pages on a website and often spend over a minute and a half on your website. If they are reading a blog, they may stay longer on your site and visit fewer pages.
If you are seeing a spike in website traffic but your average time on site is less than 30 seconds and your pages per visit are 1 or less, then the traffic to your website isn’t the quality that you want.
Typically, you want people to spend a longer time and visit more pages on your site, but if that is not happening then you need to review your marketing strategies.
The points listed above are evidence that your internet marketing strategies have been sabotaged and are indications of a need to restrategize.
So how do you make your internet marketing strategies more effective?
A) Make sure to set goals and objectives for each campaign
Clearly defining your goals and objectives for your campaign should be the first thing you do as it will help you keep track of your campaign. If the goal is to generate more email subscribers or increase sales, you would be able to know if your marketing strategy is working if you can hit your target.
If for example your marketing strategy is targeted at getting new followers and you then get 100 to 200 followers each week, this is an indication that your efforts are working.
B) Know your target market
Every brand has a particular target market for their products and services. Knowing your target audience helps you to determine which marketing strategy you should adopt and how to go about it.
Attracting the right people to your products will not only increase your sales but would also lead to better customer satisfaction. So if you sell men’s shoes, you should know the age bracket the shoes are fit for, what profession and income level, so that your marketing can be targeted at them.
Creating customized marketing campaigns that cater to each unique demographic you serve is a great way to make your marketing efforts more effective.
C) Use content for lead generation
There are many ways of generating leads (a prospective customer who has shown interest in a product or service and has provided the business with contact information), but one of the most effective methods is by providing valuable written content and distributing it appropriately.
When your contents are eye-catching, they attract people to click, like, follow and share, ultimately increasing your brand awareness and leads. The goal of this is to turn leads into buying customers and possibly brand advocates.
D) Take advantage of mobile phones
About 4.8 billion people, according to statistics, now use mobile phones. Most people take advantage of their mobile phones to look up places to shop, eat, or for entertainment. So, making your internet marketing plan mobile-friendly can go a long way in helping to promote your brand.
With that in mind, here are a few ways to ensure your mobile marketing strategy stays on track:
a) Optimize your website for both desktops and smartphones
b) Use clickable phone numbers, addresses, and CTAs (calls to action)
c) Make sure your contact details are connected to a map app
d) Ensure a quickly loading website
e) Always review ads for social media or other types of mobile-friendly platforms
E) Increase your website traffic
More traffic means more people are visiting your website and if you can convert this into leads then it is a great way to get your products and services out there. This can be especially useful if you run a blog as you need more people to interact with your posts.
The bottom line with any internet marketing campaign or tactic is to stay aligned with your core purpose, not just your product. Focus on benefits, address customer’s real needs, and understand what makes them tick. As well, stay on top of which social trends are affecting various demographics.
Avoiding common mistakes such as interacting with every post using your brand’s social media account or posting content not associated with your product can stop you from sabotaging your business efforts.
Following these simple tips will ensure that your internet marketing strategies are not sabotaged by you or anyone else.
Tags: Internet Marketing Marketing
