It may be pessimistic, but I like to see marketing from the perspective of missed opportunities. By actively seeking out the things you are doing wrong, you can focus on how to improve. A sales and marketing report filled with positive metrics is wonderful, but looking at the missed opportunities is one of the best ways to improve your strategy. After all, a marketing strategy isn’t something that you put in place and then leave alone. It should be constantly evolving and improving based on the information available to you. With this in mind, we’ll be looking at some of the most commonly missed opportunities in digital marketing.
The neglected email list
Many companies have vast email lists that they simply aren’t utilising. They might send a monthly “newsletter” with information so broad in scope that it is relevant to no one. There’s a better way to do this. It all starts with the way you build your lists. By building your lists with segments in mind, you can focus on tailoring content to that particular type of customer.
Then, rather than sending one long all-encompassing email every month, you might send 20 different emails to small segments of people. When the marketing message is defined for that particular audience, you can increase open rates and increase engagement. Over time, you’ll develop a list of super-fans within each segment. Even if some of these lists only have 10 or 20 users, you know that these people will open and engage with everything you send them.
The empty ‘thank you’ page
I land on your website. I’m really interested in the service you’re offering. I take the time to fill in an online enquiry form and then I’m redirected to a blank thank you page. Why bother? Redirection after the form submission is one way to track conversions, so it’s a very popular method used by those interested in tracking lead generation. However, it’s also common for companies to leave their thank you page blank, or simply use a standardised message informing the visitor that they will be in touch soon. There’s a better way to do this.
The visitor has already completed a transaction on your site, so you know they are interested in what they do, so why not make your thank you page work a little harder? Show them a selection of your latest blog posts, or your most popular posts of all time. Give them a reason to sign up to your email list (if you aren’t already including an opt-in with your enquiry forms). Your thank you page should be another step in the website journey rather than an abrupt goodbye.
The default email opt-in confirmation
Following on from the mistake above, using the default opt-in email offered by your email client is another common mistake. You’ve asked this visitor to sign up to your incredible mailing list and you assure them it is going to add value to their life. But then they receive a welcome email that is straight out of the box. It’s boring, and it’s a huge missed opportunity. The alternative?
Use your welcome email to showcase the best you have to offer. Make it a preview of what is yet to come that will get people excited about future emails from you. You can also take this opportunity to ask users to add your email address to their “safe list” so that future emails don’t wind up in spam.
The orphan blog post
You’ve spent hours perfecting a blog post. It’s insightful, aimed at your target customer, answers all of their questions and is fully optimised for search. You hit publish and sit back, waiting for the traffic and fresh leads to pour in. Only, you forgot to put a call to action anywhere in the post. It’s helpful, but it’s not geared for sales. You might see a lot of traffic heading to this post, but the sales are unlikely to follow. How can this be fixed?
Think of your conclusion to every blog post as your sales pitch. If a user makes it to the end of your post, you can be confident you have their attention. Now all you need to do is give them an easy next step. This could include adding an email sign up form to the end of your blogs. Or you might want to let them know about a special offer or simply pitch one of your services. At the very least, offer them more similar content so they can keep reading if they want to.
The over-eager pop-up
How often have you landed on a website only to see your screen immediately taken over by a full-page pop-up asking you to hand over your personal information? This is fairly common practice, and if you’re anything like me, you click on the little “x” and think nothing more of it. You look around the site and are pretty happy with what you find but suddenly, there’s no trace of the sign-up form. You leave and think nothing more of it.
Some people are completely against pop-ups, but if you do decide to use them, proceed with caution. Timing is key, and the first few seconds after landing on your site for the first time is not the ideal time to be asking for information. You can often use engagement metrics to decide when to serve a pop-up. For example, once the visitor has viewed at least 2 pages, or when they have been on the site for longer than 1 minute. Look at your analytics to see how long people are sticking around on average, and how many pages they are viewing, and use this as a benchmark for engagement.
If you’re ready to stop making the same mistakes and need a fresh pair of eyes on your marketing strategy, why not get in touch with Auburn today?