Digital marketing is one of the single most powerful tools you can employ to ensure the long-term growth and success of your business, which is why it can be incredibly frustrating if your strategy isn’t working

This from Graham Allchurch, Head of Digital Marketing at I-COM…

If it feels like you are struggling to generate revenue via the web, no matter what you do, take a look at I-COM’s seven reasons as to why your strategy might not be working and what you can do to get it back on track.

1. Your strategy isn’t focused enough

One of the biggest mistakes we see is a scattergun approach whereby brands throw a heck of a lot of marketing mud at the wall, then wait to see what sticks.

The problem with this approach is that when the mud finally dries, it can be hard to ascertain what is actually working and continue to build on those techniques. Additionally, you’ll risk wasting an awful lot of time, money and resources into half a dozen approaches that won’t bring you any benefits.

If this sounds familiar – take a step back and return to basics. Decide what your key objectives are and who your target audience is, and plan from there.

2. Your strategy isn’t attractive to all stages of the customer journey

At I-COM, we centre our campaigns on three stages of the customer journey: attract, engage, convert.

Any brand will have prospects at different stages of the buying cycle – some won’t be interested in their product or service right now – but, crucially, might be in the future – while others will already be ready to buy, they just need a little nudge. Each stage requires different methods and techniques to move them along the funnel to eventually become a customer.

However, too many companies focus too much of their attention on a single stage of the customer journey, not accounting for the nuances within their target audience and implementing a one-size-fits-all strategy..

To remedy this, take time to map out the typical customer journey and consider what you could do to engage your target audience if they are in each different stage of the journey.

3. Your website is attracting the wrong type of traffic

Organic traffic to your website is high, but the bounce rate is higher. Users are happy to visit your site but are refusing to make a purchase or fill in a contact form – this is confusing and incredibly frustrating.

But there’s a simple reason – your website is attracting the wrong type of traffic. Most likely this is due to your pages not being specific or targeted enough so Google has misunderstood the purpose of your business.

As an example, we have a legal client that focuses on a niche area: cosmetic surgery claims. When they first came to us we realised the copy on the page was attracting people looking for cosmetic surgery, and not a solicitor. We made some changes, and voila! It started showing for the right search terms, traffic became much more relevant and the conversion rate skyrocketed.

4. You aren’t gaining any links

Link building should be the bread and butter of any digital marketing campaign in 2020. Not sure what this means?

It’s simple: you need links from authoritative websites, pointing back to yours. This shows Google that as other sites are willing to vouch for you, a key sign that your brand and website is authoritative and trustworthy.

And if Google thinks you are trustworthy and likely to provide searchers with high quality information that answers their query, then you will begin to appear for more organic searches.

5. You’re using the wrong channels

Similar to the scattergun approach, using the wrong marketing channels can also be a huge hindrance to a successful strategy.

You might be putting all of your energy into social media, when email marketing could be much more effective.

Going after links in the national press can be great for brand awareness and prestige, but what if your target audience prefers reading niche blogs or chatting on forums?

Investigate where your audience congregates and do what you can to be visible there.

6. Your website isn’t up to scratch

This is a biggy. There is simply no point in doing lots of marketing and outreach if your website is in a bad state and not up to the task of converting any visitors. For any new client with I-COM, we 100% recommend getting their house in order first before they start inviting people in.

But what does a good website look like? As a very simple overview: it needs to look good, be fast and mobile-friendly, have easy-to-use navigation and contain user and search-friendly copy. But optimising your website is a considerable task – for more on how to improve it, sign up to receive our guide: Top 7 Factors to Achieve Online Success.

7. You’re impatient

Chopping and changing between strategies and techniques can be appealing if things appear to be going wrong or not improving as quickly as you’d like.

But in the world of digital, the results can take time to appear – the changes you make to your website or an increase in links might take anywhere between three and six months to have an effect on how you appear in search results. If you cut and run or change tactics before these results have time to bed in, you risk blunting your success.

Your future growth

Done the right way, digital marketing can bring in some incredibly lucrative results. Done the wrong way, it will be ineffectual at best and damaging to your site and brand’s reputation at worse. So, if your stats start to slide, review these top seven tips and review your strategy and website accordingly.

www.i-com.net