Online marketing can unlock a world of opportunities for your business. But this happens only with a successful online marketing campaign. With online businesses popping up every day, you may think people would be getting better at online marketing. But that’s far from reality.
Even today, many marketers and business owners bear the consequences of unsuccessful marketing campaigns. Why? Well, before discussing the most common reasons why online marketing campaigns fail, let’s discuss what defines the success of an online marketing campaign.
An online marketing campaign is deemed successful when it manages to achieve the goals it was designed to achieve. Having said that, an unsuccessful marketing campaign is the one that falls short of the campaign goals.
Many reasons contribute to an online marketing campaign’s failure. But there are certain features that all unsuccessful marketing campaigns have in common, like:
1- They Don’t Resonate with The Audience
Most marketing campaigns fail because they are built on shallow audience research and, consequently, fail to connect with the audience. Without effective audience research, you don’t have the granular insights needed to drive a customer-centric marketing campaign. Unsuccessful marketers have no idea who their target audience is and what are their likes and dislikes. As a result, they send out messages that the audience cannot relate to. And when a message is unrelatable, it is less impactful, right? Right.
Shallow audience research also makes a campaign more expensive. How? When a campaign fails to generate a meaningful engagement, it fails to drive expected results. This means all the money that had been allocated to this particular campaign is wasted. In short, a campaign built on minimal audience research is less impactful and more expensive. This justifies why such campaigns tend to be unsuccessful.
Along the lines of shallow audience research is the second reason why most marketing campaigns fail, i.e…
2- They Lack Solid Competitor Research
Competitor research helps you keep track of what others are doing in your industry, so you can match their pace, if not get ahead of them. When you ignore your competitor’s activities, you are more likely to miss out on some truly profitable channels where they are winning. For example, your competitors are engaging your target audience with podcasts. But since you don’t keep track of their activities, podcasting is nowhere on your marketing list. As a result, you can lose all your prospects on that channel to your competitors and fall behind.
But competitor research is not all about doing what competitors are doing. It is also about doing what they are not doing. Without competitor research, you miss out on the gaps your competitors may have left in the industry. And with that goes your opportunity to fill these gaps and gain a competitive edge. So, online marketing campaigns that lack solid competitor research yield underwhelming results by falling behind industry trends and failing to address market gaps.
But it is not just the competitors that unsuccessful marketing campaigns neglect.
3- They Forget Mobile Users
Most marketers invest heavily in web development as part of their online marketing campaign. But they commit one fatal mistake that becomes the reason for the failure of the entire campaign. They forget their mobile users. In today’s world, most people surf the internet on mobile devices. In this case, not having a mobile-optimized website can be detrimental to your entire online marketing campaign. Lack of mobile optimization means your website does not load well on mobile devices. This ruins the user experience for mobile visitors.
Moreover, websites that are not mobile optimized also suffer in search engine rankings. This means, despite how promising your search engine optimization or SEO online marketing strategy is, a lack of mobile optimization can hold your website back. Therefore, online marketing campaigns that aim to meet business objectives through websites fail if they neglect mobile optimization.
Apart from overlooking mobile optimization, unsuccessful online marketing campaigns also feature another potentially fatal flaw, that is:
4- They Neglect Multiple Online Marketing Channels
Most online marketing campaigns fail when they adopt a single-channel approach. The online world offers multiple channels for marketers to reach their audience. Each channel has distinct strengths and weaknesses and its own set of audiences. For example, SEO can help drive organic traffic to your website, while pay-per-click or PPC ads can quickly get you to the top of the search results. When marketers fail to build a multi-channel marketing campaign, they miss out on an opportunity to leverage the strengths of each channel and interact with the audience arriving through it.
Additionally, the modern online world is noisy. This means you cannot cut it by reaching your audience through one channel only. You have to target your customers from all sides to ensure that your marketing activities leave an impact. But when a marketing campaign adopts a single-channel approach, it fails to do that and ends up in the unsuccessful bin.
Additionally, relying on one marketing channel is similar to putting all your eggs in one basket. We all know that is never a good idea. Therefore, sticking to just one online marketing channel can lead to online marketing failure because it restricts your reach, makes you miss out on benefiting from the strengths of each channel, and increases the risk of losing everything to just one setback.
Besides the single-channel approach, there’s another feature that all unsuccessful online marketing campaigns have in common, i.e.
5- Unsuccessful Campaigns Are Marred with Inconsistency
Launching your online existence is the easy part of online marketing. What’s difficult is maintaining it.
Many marketers and business owners-turned marketers go into online marketing with great enthusiasm. They build their website, optimize it, and even publish some content. But soon, they realize how time-consuming the task is, and the enthusiasm dies as fast as a New Year’s gym resolution. They become inconsistent with their marketing activities, post less often, and rarely interact with their online customers.
When this happens, their visibility drops. With visibility goes interaction opportunity. And for campaigns aiming to spread brand awareness, this means failure. Inconsistency also damages the business’s reputation, authenticity, and reliability. And regardless of what the goal of the marketing campaign is, damaging these elements rarely contributes to its success.
The ones mentioned above are only some of the many features that all unsuccessful online marketing campaigns have in common. And now that you are more aware of them let’s see how you can avoid making these mistakes. By now, you must understand the importance of market research. So, it goes without saying that to succeed, you must prioritize audience and competitor research. Understand your target audience. Learn about their demographics and their likes, dislikes, interests, etc.
Dig deep into your competitors’ activities. Remember, you’re not copying them, just keeping track of what they are doing to guide your campaign accordingly.
In a mobile-first world, never neglect mobile optimization. You know what will happen if you do.
Diversify your online marketing approach by leveraging multiple online channels. But remember, research each channel before going in, and don’t spread yourself too thin.
Finally, be consistent! Inconsistencies in your online appearance will ruin all the progress you may have made and will dilute your investments. So, try to post as much as you can, and don’t forget to maintain consistency across multiple channels.
With a business to run, managing all these marketing activities may seem impossible. That’s because they most likely are. This is why another feature that most unsuccessful marketing campaigns have in common is that they are DIYed. Most business owners attempt to DIY their online marketing campaigns, thinking this will save them some money. But building and executing a successful online marketing campaign requires diverse skills, time, and dedication.
And business owners, with too many responsibilities, often fail to invest the time and effort successful marketing campaigns demand. As a result, DIY campaigns end up being less effective and more expensive in the long run. This is why most successful business owners trust marketing experts with their online marketing activities and ensure that their resources are well spent.
Landau Consulting, an SEO and internet marketing services company, has a team of marketing experts who offer online marketing in NJ and beyond and has helped many businesses gain traction by building and implementing successful online marketing campaigns. You can check out their services on Landau Consulting or contact them directly to discuss your options and get expert advice by visiting Landau Consulting Contact Page.
Need additional help? Check out the valuable information Landau Consulting has for you on their blog.