If you run a small business, you’d already know the importance of digital marketing. From owning and running a website to social media to email marketing, you need to promote your products and services to your customers.

Digital marketing brings numerous benefits to businesses. However, not everyone knows how to approach it. If not done correctly, it can cause you to lose in terms of time, effort, and money.

I’ll show you 7 common mistakes in digital marketing that you should avoid as a small business owner.

Don’t Make These 7 Common Mistakes in Digital Marketing

Looking at Likes and Follower Count too much While Ignoring Conversions

Likes are good for engagement. The follower count is good for showcasing your presence and credibility. But these numbers are not bringing you any money directly. For that, you have to look at conversions.

For example, you have thousands of followers on a platform, let’s say, Twitter. But if most of those followers are irrelevant, you are not getting many benefits. Instead, if you paid attention to conversions, you’ll reap the rewards.

Conversions don’t always mean sales. They are positive actions like page visitors filling out contact forms, setting meeting appointments, or calling your support team.

Here are a few tips:

1. Use compelling calls to action.
2. Create valuable, engaging content.
3. Make a responsive website

Focusing too much on Organic Content While Ignoring Paid Ads

Organic traffic means that search engines know that you provide quality content to your visitors. The kind that gives people exactly what they are looking for. But as they say, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. So you shouldn’t ignore paid ads.

I advocate and live by organic traffic every day. It’s my first approach when it comes to digital marketing. I tell people that you should focus on organic as a long-term approach, but you should also run paid ads for short-term benefits.

Paid ads can never be a long-term strategy unless you have constant investment. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run them. People fall into the trap of never running paid ads.

As I said, they can give you rewards quickly. This is especially important if you are just starting out. Your new website won’t give much results if you just focus on organic traffic.

Implement a paid ads strategy as well. It will give you a much-needed revenue boost.

Not Knowing Your Audience

This is a recipe for disaster in every type of business and marketing. Each book on marketing you open will have this principle in some form. Some authors will use different words to tell this, but in the end, you’ll have something related to this principle: Know your audience.

If you don’t know your audience, you are just shooting in the dark. Every person can’t be your customer.

For example, you run an ad and title it “Car for everyone.” That way, you may not attract the right buyers. But if you sold sports cars and knew your audience, you’d title it as “Pure Adrenaline! World’s most affordable exotic car.” This will hook people who are your ideal customers.

So write this principle somewhere and use it in each one of your marketing campaigns: I must know my audience.

Spreading Yourself too Thin on Many Platforms

This is in continuation to our last point. If you knew your audience, you wouldn’t be spending time on all platforms.

Each type of audience has its own favorite platforms. For example, younger audiences tend to hang out on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. You are more likely to find business communities on LinkedIn and Twitter.

So if you were selling SEO tools TikTok, you have far fewer chances of getting results, as compared to if you were doing the same on Twitter.

Many small business owners make the common mistake of posting on all platforms. Instead, if they were focusing on a handful of relevant platforms, they’ll get handsome results.

So learn where your audience hangs out. Experiment and find what works for you.

Not Having a Concrete, Specific, Actionable Plan

If you are failing to plan, you are planning to fail. And this is not limited to big businesses. This goes for small businesses as well.

Many small business owners make the common digital marketing mistake of not having a written plan. That leads to creating ineffective and irrelevant campaigns.

Instead, you should consider the following things when creating your marketing plan:

1. What should people know about your business?
2. Who’s your ideal customer?
3. What platforms you should focus on?
4. What’s the most practical way to reach ideal customers?
5. What makes you stand out from your competition?

The plan should be specific, concrete, and actionable. “Increase sales” is a goal, not a plan. When you include things like what, when, and how, it becomes a plan.

Paying too Little or too Much Attention to Competition

Competitor analysis is important in many ways. It lets you know what other businesses are up to. Also, you learn their good points and mistakes so that you can improve yourself.

In the end, you have a business to run as well. So make sure that you are giving just the right time and effort to competitor analysis.

Not Tracking and Measuring Results

Unfortunately, people forget to track and measure their results. That is related to not having a solid plan.

If they had a roadmap, they’ll track and measure how they are reaching it.

What’s the biggest mistake in digital marketing according to you? Let me know in the comments below.