Inbound Marketing Mistakes That Are Costing You Money

At first glance, inbound marketing seems quite easy. You may even think you can manage it on your own or learn on the fly. One thing most marketers quickly discover, however, is that there’s a lot more to know than meets the eye.

Many marketers make mistakes when they start out with inbound techniques. Unfortunately, some of these mistakes can end up costing you in the long run. Analyze your inbound marketing efforts to make sure you’re not committing these errors. If you are, there’s good news. Most of them are easy to fix.

You Didn’t Prioritize

There are so many options when it comes to inbound marketing, it can be tempting to try everything at once. Doing too much at once is both time-intensive and labour-intensive. Worse, it can also make it more difficult to determine what’s working and what’s not.

Instead of adopting every inbound marketing technique under the sun or flitting from tactic to tactic, determine which channels are strong and which ones could use some more attention. Once you’ve determined which channels need more work, you can focus your efforts there.

Take a moment to consider if all branches of your marketing strategy are working in tandem. Blog posts can be used to drive traffic, but they can also encourage customers to sign up for events or a newsletter. In turn, the newsletter can be used to promote what’s happening on other channels.

Your Goals Were Unrealistic

When you sat down and devised your inbound marketing strategy, you probably (hopefully) set goals. The real question is how realistic those goals were. If you were asked to grow sales by 100 percent, you’d probably say the goal was unrealistic.

Be sure to use the “SMART” acronym to work out your goals. Goals should always be specific, measureable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Accountability is key here. Instead of vaguely suggesting the goal is to “increase sales” or “gain more brand awareness,” set a concrete goal such as “increase sales by 1.5 percent in three months” or “gain 500 more social media followers in six months.”

Relevant goals will ensure what you do is important for the inbound strategy and the company as a whole.

You Sprang for Brand -New and Ignored Optimization

Inbound marketing can be time-intensive and costly. One thing that runs up the bill quite easily is the creation of brand-new content. If you already have content, however, you should be thinking about repurposing it and optimizing it to give it new life.

Think about using on-page SEO on your webpages or updating old blog posts to make them new and relevant. Can a blog be repurposed into an infographic or a video? Thinking laterally about content creation and the resources you already have can make your strategy even more effective and cost-effective.

You Ignored the Wider Context

Social listening has become more and more important for businesses today since it allows them to tap into feedback and conversations about their brands. You need to be paying attention to the conversations happening around you to create timely, relevant content your customers and leads want to read.

If you’re talking about outdated subjects or your branding isn’t in tune with the wider perception of your company, you run the risk of making your business look out of touch. In turn, your inbound marketing won’t be as effective at driving traffic and won’t convert as readily.

You Didn’t Measure Results

Almost anything and everything can be measured in business today, and your inbound marketing success is no exception. If you want to know what’s working and what’s not working, you need to crunch the numbers. Analyzing the data will give you better insights and allow you to make more strategic decisions.