7 Common Causes Of Internet Digital Marketing Failure

Many companies, organizations, public figures, and institutions are achieving their digital marketing aims, at the same time some entities are failing to accomplish their digital marketing aims. Do you believe you have done everything right, yet, experiencing failure in achieving your digital marketing aims?

Listed below are 7 common causes of internet digital marketing failure.

1: You’re Just Copying Your Competitors

I’m not here to tell you to be unique, authentic, and differentiate yourself from your rivals, etc. Because I believe you have heard and read these words many times. Instead, I want to let you know that many digital marketing campaigns are run by smart digital marketers, who use different sophisticated digital marketing strategies not easily understood by third parties, also they employ propaganda internet advertising (advertising meant to distract competitors from what is working for them).

Copying these competitors means a waste of effort, resources, and in the end failure. Because the pattern of digital marketing you think is moving them forward and they’re using to stimulate sales isn’t what you think.

Also, there’re competitors who don’t know what they’re doing, who think they know, copying them means all of you will be failures.

2: You’re Focusing on Traffic Instead of Conversions

Traffic is a means to an end, not an end itself. The ultimate goal of business is profit, which comes from making sales. Focusing on traffic generation without conversion considerations will cause internet digital marketing failure. Right channels and digital marketing tools need to be employed and attention should be on conversion not traffic; every traffic source should be evaluated on the basis of its conversion value.
For example, if your product or service is meant for males 40 years+, but traffics coming to your sites are females or males below 25 years, this will be a waste of resources because they won’t buy or subscribe to your product or service. And when they don’t convert, your internet digital marketing will fail.

3: You Haven’t Put the Customer First

When you ignore your customers by putting a website that isn’t responsive; bad customer care, poor service delivery, incomplete information, no adequate educations, and poor quality products, and so on. These will cause your internet digital marketing failure. When we were in marketing school, we had a motto that says” towards consumer’s satisfaction” I believe it’s because all the studies about marketing and most definitions of marketing centered on satisfying consumers ( end-users, customers, buyers, subscribers, audiences, clients, etc).

We’re no longer in the product-orientated era, we’re in a marketing-oriented era, consumers are now wiser, have associations, choices, use different channels, tools, etc. When you fail to put the consumers first in your digital marketing, with just a click of a mouse, they will move to somewhere else.

4: One Sided Component of Digital Marketing

One-sided component of internet digital marketing can cause failures. Because, in digital marketing, there’re 6 components of digital marketing, which are online display advertising, influencers marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, search engine marketing, and mobile marketing. Each of them has advantages and disadvantages based on divergent variables.
For example, every service and product has a life cycle which is introduction, growth, maturity, and decline stage. A particular stage will need awareness, education; another will need persuasive advertising, yet another will need reminder or reinforcement advertising, etc. Different components of digital marketing serve different needs, relying on one component of digital marketing to achieve all objectives will cause a digital marketing failure.

5: Ridiculous Expectations

Unless you’re the only business selling a particular product or rendering a given service and the whole world is waiting for you. Expecting to hit it big for the first time or running a campaign for one or two days, will cause a perceived digital marketing failure. In this case, it isn’t digital marketing that fails, but the result you got is below your expectation, which is a standard you set for yourself.

Consider factors such as your industry demand, market awareness of your brand, perceived qualities of your product or service, price, competitors’ activities, budget, time on marketplace, etc. Then, have expectations that are consistent with all these.

6: Wrong Channel Selection

Wrong channel selection is one of the major causes of internet digital marketing failures. Different channels have their strengths and weakness (it depends on your aim at any given moment, and the product life cycle). If your intention is to create awareness and educate your potential buyers about your product or service, there’re channels or platforms for it; if your goal is to stimulate a sale, there’re platforms for it; if your plan is to run reminder advertising, there’re a combination of platforms for achieving this; also if your business aim is to carry out reinforcement digital marketing, there’re platforms for this.

Now the problem is, if your company wants to increase sales, and uses platforms meant for awareness creation, digital marketing will fail, people won’t buy. The reason, they’re not actively searching for products to buy or services to subscribe to; they will only be made aware of the product or service, and will unlikely make an inquiry, let alone buy. This is one of the reasons a popular platform doesn’t mean it’s good for your plan.

Note: owners of these platforms/channels will promote them and claim they can achieve all objectives and goals, as a result, would tell you something different from the points I made here. They’re in the business of getting as many advertisers as possible. This is where hiring an advanced digital marketing agency like AdHang comes in.

Also, as mentioned earlier, copying competitors who got this wrong, means all of you will fail.

7: Going Against Giants With Low Budget And No Clear Strategy

Many industries are fully served or dominated by giant companies who have been in business for decades and manned by veteran marketers who have years of experience achieving milestones. Going against these giants with a low budget, and no clear digital marketing strategy will head you to internet digital marketing failures.

Digital marketing is beyond the online advertising banners you see out there, a lot of works had been done before those banners are displayed out there. From SWOT analysis, strategic positioning, creative materials preparation, competitors’ analysis, tactical tools building, planning, and selection to metric evaluation; running and managing a campaign with points-of-parity or points-of-different approaches, etc. All these need clear strategies, and require investment; a low budget means that many things will be left out, which will likely lead to a digital marketing failure.

As was mentioned in an article written by AdHang team, you can be running digital marketing, and sales will be going somewhere else. Because, your campaigns only remind prospects about established names or promote competitors, and buyers will be going there to buy.