Why Marketing Campaigns Fail
April 02, 2019 (0 comments)
Having an amazing product - and being able to market that product as effectively as possible - are two entirely different things. Learn some common mistakes companies make when running their digital marketing campaigns.
We take digital marketing for granted. It's so easy to simply make a post on Facebook that we sometimes forget the 8-10 other steps to take to make that post a success.
Here are some key points to remember - that are often overlooked - when planning your marketing campaigns. These are some things I often see that are slowing a company's marketing goals.
1. Bad Website
Bringing a user from an ad to a bad website is a complete waste of money. If they click an ad and are brought to a website that looks outdated/amateur or loads slowly, there is a slim chance they’ll order from your site or come into your store.
Your website is the first test of trust for a visitor. If this first crucial stage gets screwed up, they likely wont become a customer.
INVEST IN A NICE WEBSITE or you don't have a chance.
2. Weak Ad Targeting
There are many ways to accurately target potential customers online. Simply blasting out a bunch of random ads is never really going to be an accurate way to reach the right people, and we should stop doing that.
Targeting the wrong people is an enormous reason for ads to fail, regardless of the marketing campaign. “Weak customer personalization” also falls under this category.
We need to use legitimate targeting methods to enhance our marketing. This means learning how to use things like Facebook's custom audiences feature instead of just posting things to our page and crossing our fingers.
3. Weak Content
What do you have to say that will cause people to click on your ads and posts? This is a huge misconception, and if you attended Jewelry Ecomm LIVE! last year, you heard me talk about this a lot in my presentation.
The reason most ads fail is because they’re typical, boring ads. Write about things that your visitors are likely to click on. Often times, this is not a blatant ad to click your product. It’s often a great blog post or story that "hooks" them and gets them onto your site. If they're impressed with your post and it relates to their interests, they'll likely browse your site.
4. Poor Use of Landing Pages
It’s surprising how many small business owners run ads, only to bring the user to the wrong page on their site.
With a product, it’s often simple - bring the visitor directly to the product description that the ad was for. But what if you’re promoting a coupon? Or a special offer? Or a trunk show? These are all things that can be much more successful by having a dedicated landing page for each goal. By bringing visitors to a clear landing page (we have many articles on this site explaining what makes a good landing page), you'll see much stronger payoffs for your marketing effort.
5. Not Using Paid Ads
There’s a limit to how far your organic (unpaid) reach will spread. Without a doubt, Facebook and Google are the two biggest promotional opportunities for a jewelry store. Yet each of them can be difficult to grow for free.
Search Engine Optimization - the primary “free” way to get found on Google, known as SEO, sometimes takes years of website formatting and link building to start seeing results. Similarly, Facebook limits your post audience to 2% of your fans unless you pay for ads to extend the reach of those posts.
So, you’ll make a little progress without a budget, but eventually you’ll want to invest in more exposure.
6. Weak Copy
Again, it’s not always the technical side of running a marketing campaign that makes a difference - it’s your originality and writing ability.
The headlines and descriptive copy you use in your ads are huge factors to the likeliness that someone will click on your ads. Think about what would cause someone to actually click on your ad.
7. No Secondary Marketing Capabilities
A major benefit of digital marketing is having the ability to send secondary marketing attempts to visitors based on how they interacted with our original marketing push.
For example, if someone clicks on an ad we run, but decides not to purchase, we can send them follow up ads. If someone leaves an item in their checkout cart but decides not to buy, we can use digital marketing to follow up with secondary marketing to push them to buy that item they almost bought.
In these ways, digital marketing is way superior to print or billboard ads. So if we’re running digital marketing, why are we not taking advantage of this?
8. Not Prioritizing Email Collection
Email addresses are gold, and you should treat them as such.
Much of your digital marketing begins with acquiring someone’s email address. With someone’s email address, we can send them a variety of targeted marketing through email, social media, and other ads. You should constantly find a way to offer your visitors something intriguing in exchange for their email address.
