The fast-paced world of digital media — with its new technologies and iterative improvements — has theoretically made marketers’ lives easier.
But the counterpart is that marketers are overwhelmed. It seems like every week there’s something new we NEED to be doing, lest we get left behind.
But a lot of this new “stuff” has already become outdated. Or worse still, most of it was never a good use of time and budget to begin with.
To help transform you into a more efficient business thinker, here are 10 tactics you can cut from your marketing plan today, and where to spend that previously wasted time…
1. ON-PAGE SEO OBSESSION
Most marketers are really comfortable with optimizing their web content for SEO, because they know it’s something well within their control to do. They hit the biggies —
H1
Page Title
Post Title
Image
URL
Content
— with their keywords, and sit pretty thinking they totally nailed their SEO.
Unfortunately, what we’re comfortable with isn’t always the best use of our time.
On-page SEO, while something you should certainly spend a couple minutes checking out before you publish new web content, isn’t something marketers should be obsessing over anymore.
Google’s algorithm is much more sophisticated than it was even a few years ago, so keyword optimization isn’t going to cut it anymore.
CUT THE ON-PAGE SEO FIXATION AND START FOCUSING ON:
Much like the social media bandwagon we’ve all jumped on, most marketers are convinced they need to be blogging for their business.
Of late, some marketers have taken this concept to the extreme, pumping out content at assembly-line pace.
More blogging is better blogging, right?
Not necessarily.
If you’re trying to compensate for low quality with high quantity, you’re doing yourself more harm than good — readers won’t regard your content well, and as a result, Google won’t hold your domain in high regard, either.
Additionally, if you’re resource-strapped, there’s a blogging volume sweet spot you can rest comfortably in.
92% of businesses that blog multiple times a day have acquired a customer from it.But 78% of businesses that blog on a daily basis have also acquired a customer from it.
Test the frequency of your blog publishing volume, and uncover the volume you need to hold to maintain the customer acquisition you need from that channel.
After a while, you’ll start to realize some offers perform better than others for lead generation, so you start using that offer all of the time.
Problem is, that offer can get really over-saturated really fast, and what once yielded your best click-through rate will end up being mediocre at best.
Start focusing on creating a new lead generation offer that’ll capture people’s attention. Look at historical data to see what topic has performed best for you, and find a way to make it 10 times better.
4. MILLIONS OF MINDLESS BACKLINKS
To be great at SEO, you need inbound links. But to get inbound links, you need other sites to link to you. That doesn’t give you much control.
Oh, I know! I’ll create my own little websites — many marketers have come to refer to these as ‘microsites’ — and link to my domain from those!
Drop this.
First of all, maintaining a bunch of websites takes a ridiculous amount of time and money.
I mean, where are you getting all the content to keep them going?
Plus, for your inbound links to mean anything, they need to be coming from a wide variety of high quality sites. Unless you plan on creating hundreds of microsites that have a ton of clout with the SERPs, this strategy is a waste of your time.
START FOCUSING ON: Attracting organic inbound links. Work on creating content and marketing people love. Do that, and you’ll see the right kind of linking — the inbound kind.
5. OVER-REPORTING
We’re the last ones to say you shouldn’t be reporting on your marketing, but with the Big Data explosion has also come a whole lot of time wasted interpreting numbers and analytics that don’t really mean anything for you right now.
It’s easy to spend an entire day just diving into, say, conversion reports, but what is all that information getting you? A lot of spreadsheets and numbers does not make a marketing strategy.
Figure out exactly what numbers you need to know for your business’ marketing, and do deeper dives into specific metrics as needed. It’s a better use of your time, and frankly provides more actionable advice than running hours of reports at the end of each month that you never use.
START FOCUSING ON: The metrics you need to succeed. Analyze where your business has performed well, and where it has potential. Start focusing on these areas.
The thinking behind the millions of press releases businesses produce each year is that they’ll get placed on an external site when picked up, and the coverage will come with an inbound link.
Unfortunately, almost all of the press releases getting churned out of marketing departments is not landing any actual press coverage. And the releases that are picked up?
Those aren’t exactly valuable inbound links when they’re getting funneled out to low quality sites.
Stop trying to weave an amazing story out of something relatively unamazing just so you have PR fodder.
It’ll just make journalists get really used to ignoring you, and your writing time is better spent on other types of content — like blog posts, for instance — that attract qualified readers and quality links.
START FOCUSING ON: Writing other types of content — like blog posts, for instance — that attract qualified readers and quality links.
7. UNTARGETED PAID MEDIA SPEND
2015 saw a ton of advancements in paid advertising targeting options. For instance, did you know…
Twitter paid advertising now allows marketers to target their audience by interest or username?
If you’re investing in PPC in any capacity and using targeting like this, congratulations, you’re doing it right.
If, however, you’re dumping money into completely untargeted PPC, it’s kind of like emailing your entire contacts database without doing any segmentation.
Turn off your paid media spend that isn’t leveraging targeting functionality, otherwise you’re throwing your marketing budget right out the window.
START FOCUSING ON: Targeting your PPC campaigns to people you want to reach. Even if that overall volume is lower, the conversion will be higher.
You unequivocally should be investing in mobile marketing.
Investing in mobile application development, however, is a distraction and resource sap for most marketers.
There are well over one million mobile apps on the market, and they’re being released at rapidly increasing rates — not to mention 25% of apps are downloaded only once, and never used again after their initial download.
With a cluttered market and stickiness challenge, unless your mobile app is going to drive some serious results for your business, reroute your efforts to something that will give you a bigger bang for your buck.
START FOCUSING ON: Optimizing your entire web presence for mobile. The negative impact from having an unfriendly mobile presence will be far greater than the success of a mobile app.
Full-fledged website redesigns start out sounding like a great idea, and end up being a massive headache — typically pulling in more people than you thought would be involved, spending more money than you budgeted, and often adversely impacting conversion rates.
It’s not that you positively do not need a website redesign in 2016 — you very well may — but before you overhaul what you’ve got, ask yourself if you can work in smaller chunks.
Consider a series of A/B tests in which you incrementally improve upon parts of your website, and apply your learning on a wider scale once they’re statistically significant.
And if you do learn that a bigger redesign is needed, assess whether you have the in-house resources required to pull it off without derailing all your other initiatives.
Fast forward to today, and most marketers are really scared of being the equivalent of the one who said “Facebook is dumb” back in 2007.
As a result, there’s a whole lot of time wasted on social networks that, frankly, don’t really work for you.
But you keep using them out of fear of getting left behind. If the social networks you’re using aren’t working, now is the time to stop using them.
For example, if you gave Pinterest the old college try, and it simply is not driving any meaningful business results for you, let it go.
Just make sure you’re making your decision based on analytics, not gut feelings.
START FOCUSING ON: Optimizing the social media channels that are driving success for your business. It’s okay to admit that a particular network doesn’t work for you.
CONCLUSION
There’s no time like the present to take a look at your marketing activities and figure out what’s working, and what isn’t.
And if you’re setting aggressive marketing goals for yourself, cutting some of the time-wasters and ineffective tactics mentioned in this ebook will give you the bandwidth you need to pursue those new strategies.
Whatever it is you’re resolving to do with your marketing strategy next year, make sure you resolve one extra thing: To constantly evaluate whether your activities are moving the needle.
It’s always a good idea to experiment with something new — as long as you know when to say “when” with the latest and greatest.
Wow what a journey it’s been so far! I’ve certainly experienced my share of highs and lows, frustrations and anxieties. But this experience has far exceeded my expectations. Not only am I learning new skills that will take me places (literally), I’m meeting interesting, intelligent and inspirational people from all over the world.
But like any beginner, I’m learning through hard work, determination, trial and error. Here, I share with you some of the mistakes I’ve made and lessons I’ve learnt since starting this amazing journey. I’ll be updating this page as I go, but in the meantime, enjoy – I hope you get something out of it. And please do give me your feedback at the bottom.
1. There’s definitely no silver bullet.
The internet marketing ‘gurus’ make online marketing and social media sound so easy. What we forget is that these people have been doing this stuff for years. As beginners, we’re starting from scratch – and it’s hard work! I’m on my computer at least 10 hours a day, almost every day – searching, reading, connecting and learning. There’s definitely no easy way to be in this game.
2. They say ‘love conquers all’ – I think they may be right!
Passion is an energy that comes from the heart and there’s no faking it. My first blog was a total disaster because I wasn’t passionate about the niche I chose. Even though it was a great blog with [what I thought was] good information and a free e-book to boot, when it came to social media, I bombed badly because I couldn’t post from the heart – and it showed. So I quit.Business is something I’ve always been passionate about, so this niche is just perfect for me!
3. Decide if you’re Arthur or Martha
Ah… branding. Branding is one of the most important parts of your business strategy because it’s how you identify yourself to the world. It’s so important to get your branding right, right from the beginning or you could land yourself in a spot of bother, like I did.
I had two different names – Copytutor in Twitter (as I’m creating a copywriting tutorial) and The Online Marketing Rookie everywhere else. I won’t bore you with the details, but changing my Twitter username to be consistent was a total pain in the proverbial. Not only was my Twitter account linked to so many places, but 3rd party software such as Buffer, Hootsuite and Twylah don’t make it easy to change usernames, so best to avoid having to do it in the first place.
4. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is
When I first started on this journey I attended a ‘free’ seminar that felt like a cross between a brightly-lit nightclub and an evangelistic gathering. It was odd, but for a beginner, the info I received was really helpful and got me started in this business. Cool!
But what I’ve since discovered is that the creators of these seminars aren’t there to help you, as they claim. Their goal is to entice you to part with your money (and it’s a lot of money! They make hundreds of thousands every seminar) using sneaky – but clever – tactics. Even a cynic like myself got sucked into the hole and bought a course that: 1) promoted what I consider to be unethical practices, and 2) was totally overpriced. The course did help a little, but more from a motivational perspective than anything else, given I’d paid so much for it.
So if you’re a newbie like me, go along to ‘free’ seminars because you’re likely to learn something from them. But go with your eyes open, and think carefully before parting with your money – the hype and false promises are often really too good to be true.
5. Yep, multitasking is unproductive
Do you have a gazillion things going on at once? Are you constantly distracted by social media and interrupted by phone calls, text messages and Facebook chats? I hear you…
So I recently started my own productivity system. Here’s how I try to organise myself:
A To Do List at the beginning of every day, then crossing things off and adding to it as I go during the day
Scheduling tasks for every hour of my day – usually I block off an hour every morning to check and respond to emails, then schedule other tasks throughout the day
Scheduling 2 communication-free hours every day to focus on stuff like this blog, my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn pages. By communication-free, I mean turning off phones and closing down emails and Skype.
It works pretty well, but only when I’m using it. If you have a productivity system that’s working really well for you, I’d love to hear about it! Please leave me a comment below.
6. Networking works!
The internet can be a lonely place, and when you’re learning so many different things at once, it can be really helpful to have a network of people you can connect with. I now talk to and meet up other online marketers regularly and connect with experts I’ve met online. For me, it’s about having support, people to bounce ideas off, and people I trust to review my work before it gets published.
So join forums, send messages to experts, talk to others on Facebook, and attend local networking events. You’ll be all the better for it – mentally, emotionally and knowledge-wise.
7. Be your Own Host
Most blogging pros will tell you to host your own website/blog. Well, I’ve discovered that they’re right! But add to that your own email subscription system as well.
As a rookie, it’s easy to take up offers of help from others, but what I’ve learnt is that it’s better to bite the bullet and do it yourself. You see, both my blog and email subscriptions were initially hosted by a good friend who has a web business. But a couple of weeks in, and I had to transfer both to new hosting services – which wasted days of my time and created havoc from having to transfer files and lists.
The thing is, when you’re a rookie, you’re learning through trial and error. A simple mistake I madecaused spammers to infiltrate my friend’s hosting site, which affected his clients as well. Then another simple mistake (not disclosing my physical address in emails) caused a warning from the US Feds regarding SPAM; the problem could’ve been fixed easily but instead, my friend panicked and closed my account without talking with me about it first.
So now I’m using Hostgator for web hosting and have my own AWeber account for email subs. With your own hosting, it may cost a little more but you certainly have better control over your own business.
