“If you’re not failing now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything innovative.” - Woody Allen
Inbound marketing success takes time. And Mr. Allen got it right (although he was talking about filmmaking) but, really, what’s the point in coming up with new, creative ways of marketing a product or a service without thinking outside the box and failing a little in the process?
If failure is the key to success, then learning from those mistakes is essential. So, we’ve prepared a list of 8 marketing mistakes that we’ve observed (and experienced) through our years in the Inbound Marketing field. We hope that you, too, can learn something from them. Check them out:
1. Expecting Instant Success
First and foremost, you should never, ever expect to get instant results as you implement inbound marketing tactics. See, most of the bits and pieces that make up for great marketing strategies take time to emerge in the hard numbers. It won’t take years, but give it a few months. If your strategy is as good as you claim, and you work hard at it, you’ll see the results fairly quickly.
2. Having Unrealistic, Non-Measurable Goals
You’ll want to be specific, relevant and realistic about the goals you propose for your campaigns and clients. Say you want to increase blog readership.
Instead of saying "I'll just write more blog posts a week," you should be saying this: "I'll write X number of blog posts a week to increase monthly visits by X amount." The more specific you are about your goals, the better.
Plus, if you don't see an increase in traffic (because you know—you’ll have to rely on hard numbers) then, you can change that number right away. Keep up with these goals; your success depends on it.
3. Not Measuring Results
This one comes attached to mistake #2. It’s hard to detect progress without having hard numbers in front of you. We advise that you keep track of monthly analytics reports to see if there were any positive or negative changes. Make adjustments as you see fit.
Creating Case Studies out of your experiences is a great tool to dissect information further. Showing what worked and didn’t work in a blog post or an eBook can also help you recap information for yourself, your audience, and future clients.
Share these tips with friends and colleagues!
4. Not Learning From Industry Influencer Blogs
Inbound marketing is an ever-evolving industry, and you must keep up with those who know the game like the back of their hands. We recommend you check out the following industry leader blogs:
- HubSpot
- This is one of our personal favorites. The HubSpot blog is an authoritative resource packed full of inbound marketing strategy advice, free templates, eBooks, and infographics. (Click to Tweet!) They provide super useful how-tos on landing pages, blogging, SEO, and social media too.
- KISSmetrics
- KISSmetrics is the ultimate go-to web analytics solution. (Click to Tweet!) Their content provides detailed, practical information about analytics, marketing tactics, and testing. They provide tons of super simple examples and data to back up any conclusions.
- Copyblogger
- Need copywriting advice? Check these guys out. The Copyblogger blog, founded by content writing guru Brian Clark, is an incredible resource for the marketing community and business owners. (Click to Tweet!) CP publishes how-to articles and neat infographics on email marketing, content writing and strategy, landing pages, and much more.
- Moz
- Moz, formerly known as SEOMoz, is the resource for all things SEO and marketing analytics. (Click to Tweet!) Founded by one of the industry greats, Rand Fishkin, Moz's blog offers tips, tricks, and strategies for improving your SEO content strategies and brand marketing, as well as social media hacks
5. Not Going Mobile
The Mobilegeddon effect is here to stay, and if you are not up to date, it can all come crumbling down very quickly. Not going mobile can now hurt your rankings. Having a responsive website will not only make Google happy, but also your visitors. I mean, who really wants to pinch-to-zoom nowadays?
6. Hoping for Success without a Blog
Never put off blogging. Every time that you publish a new blog post on your site, a new indexed page is born. This means that there is now a greater chance of ranking higher in search engines, driving more traffic to your site as a result. The more blog posts you publish, the more chances Google bots will get to crawl your site. New blog posts are also new opportunities to generate more leads. Treat each blog post as a chance to reel in more business. Tie in a campaign to each and every blog you write. Create additional educational material that you can offer at the end of the blog post with the help of CTAs and landing pages.
7. Creating Content Without a Plan
Planophobia is fairly common. But don’t let it get to you here. In fact, did you know that 84% of marketers who say they are ineffective at content marketing say they have no documented strategy or plans? An editorial calendar lets you stay on top of priorities, but it also your team to look at blogging and campaigns with a more critical eye. What works well and what doesn’t? Content planning lets your team analyze hard numbers, detect problems and create solutions to the problems at hand.
8. Content Planning Without Knowing Who You are Targeting
What’s the point of content planning if you don’t know whom you are trying to communicate with? Creating content that delights and attracts is dependent on knowing your buyer personas. Buyer personas are, according to HubSpot, semi-fictional representations of ideal customers based on market research and real data about your existing customers. Creating content for these fictional customers will help you define and plan for content ahead of time, making your job less time consuming and much more organized.
Need some more advice? Contact us today for a free business assessment. We'll be happy to go over your current strategies and find new opportunities to improve your inbound marketing efforts. Are you ready for answers? Contact us today!