Which type of websites do you think are the most popular on WordPress? News? Art? Sports? Wrong! According to ManageWP in 2014, the number of business sites on WordPress was 5 times the number of WordPress-managed news sites.
What does this mean?
It means that WordPress, since quite a long time ago, has proved itself to be an excellent platform for business! Thus, it is not strange that more and more people have been building their empires here on WordPress, and successful. Do you know what they have in common? Passion? Determination? Talents? Yes, they are all true! But, there is one tiny little thing, without which no one can build up a great business empire online.
And that, my friends, is online marketing skills!
I know it is hard enough for one to master these so-called skills in a short time, let alone applying it to the WordPress platform! Understanding that such combination can make anyone go dizzy, here I am with a little help: another WordPress know-how thread on marketing! People say Hi to the collection of 9 common and popular mistakes related to marketing on WordPress, and how to solve them!
Let us take a glance at what they are, then go into details, alright? So, the 9 popular mistakes people make with marketing on WordPress include:
- Failing to Set Clear Goals
- Targeting the Wrong Audience
- Running an Email List or Newsletter with WordPress
- Overlooking the Power of Mobile Devices
- Ineffective Communication with Sales Team
- Mistaking an Email List with Blog Subscription Tools
- Buying Social Media Followers
- Hesitating to Build an Email List
- Neglecting Google Analytics
Failing to Set Clear Goals
An extraordinary figure, Geoff Hoesch, principal of the Dragonfly Digital Marketing once said that one of the biggest mistakes that a digital marketer can make is “not establishing analytics goals prior to the start of a campaign”. With that, he went on, “In order to track the success of a digital marketing campaign, it’s necessary to define goals and ensure that analytics tracking is properly set up for these goals.” You heard him! If you decide to start a marketing campaign on WordPress for your new products, make sure to clarify all of your goals. These goals may involve sales, calls, registers, etc.
Just go into details and ask yourself such questions as “How many people I want to pre-order my new products?”; “How many sales I want for the first month?”, “How many for the second one?”
While clear goals stimulate you to make bigger efforts to achieve them, it also helps you measure ROI (return on investment) and net benefit more easily! So, next time before embarking on any campaign, sit yourself down and list out the goals you want to achieve at the end of the campaign, will you?
Targeting the Wrong Audience
No matter how good your products can be, all of them would go to waste if you failed to promote them to those who want to buy, that is, the right audience. Sharing the same view, Michelle Stinson Ross, the content and outreach expert of Authority Labs, said:
“Even if a brand is creating fantastic content, they will miss a great deal of the opportunity if they don’t take the extra step to promote it to the right audience at the right time.”
Then, how to define the targeted audience and how to reach out to them? Well, here are some suggestions:
- Base on visitors’ behaviors, not just personal descriptions;
- Layer on purchase intent and related life events to get to know more about your potential customers.
- Make full use of tracking pixels and cookies to approach people who have visited your WordPress site.
Running an Email List or Newsletter with WordPress
Although WordPress is designed with the amazing capability to send email notifications, it cannot do the same with email newsletters. Because of this lack, many WordPress website owners go for plugins that send out email newsletters without signing up for an email marketing service, which is not a wise choice. Why is it?
To explain in brief, there are three reasons. First, most WordPress hosting providers consider this as a misuse of terms and services. Second, these servers are usually poorly built and do not possess the ability to send all emails at the same time. Third, if you switch to an email marketing service later (which I assure you will end up doing), it will be troublesome for your subscribers as they are likely to be asked to opt in again.
Want to stay away from all those troubles? Easy, choose a renowned email service provider and sign up! My recommendations? You could research about Constant Contact, Aweber and MailChimp to see what they have to offer!
Overlooking the Power of Mobile Devices
Do you know 71% of the marketers surveyed believe mobile marketing is vital to their business (according to salesforec.com)? Well, now you do. Does it change the way you look at those mobile devices? I think you should. It is quite clear that mobile devices play a bigger and bigger part in the lives of billions of people on this planet.
I bet many now spend more time swiping their phones’ screens than sitting in front of their laptops or PCs. That is exactly why you should never ignore mobile devices! Do you want increased traffic? More sales? Success? Then, mobile marketing cannot be missed! But what can you do specifically? Well, let’s start by following these pieces of advice:
- Make sure your website is mobile-friendly, and so are the website’s special offers and sales;
- Examine how your users interact with you on mobile and how you can improve their experience;
- Develop a mobile strategy, which should involve a platform that can help you deliver meaningful messages to your users.
Ineffective Communication with Sales Team
The idea is raised by Jeremy Durant, the business principal of Bop Design, a renowned marketing firm, as he says: “The top mistake online marketers make is not communicating with their sales team – not asking for input from sales.”
It is true that failed connection between the marketing team and the sales team can lead to decreased effectiveness when it comes to marketing products. So, what should they do? A nice idea is to plan monthly meetings between the two teams. Since they both work with the product, they need to share one same voice.
Mistaking an Email List with Blog Subscription Tools
Many WordPress users, including quite advanced ones, are still confused between an email list with blog subscription tools. While the latter does allow you to receive blog posts via email, yet it is not an email list. Blog subscription tools like JetPack (plugin) or Feedburner (service) are in fact very helpful, however, remember there are some features they do not offer, for example:
- You do not own contact lists;
- You cannot send out private email newsletters to users;
- There are no contact-management, advanced analytics to use;
- You cannot utilize these tools to get more email subscribers.
Do bear these differences in mind when choosing between those two!
Buying Social Media Followers
Saying marketing revolves around getting your brand and products known by a large number of people makes sense, yes. But to consider achieving such thing by buying followers and fans on social accounts makes no sense! Why is that? Let me give you three short and concise reasons:
- Low engagement: Since people do not really take interest in what you offer, they will have barely any interaction with you. That is not to mention fake accounts among the numbers!
- Loss of reputation: Some Twitter Follower services require to access to your account and then spam your followers, which is a terrible thing that leads to a downgrade of your account in the eye of the public.
- You will be revealed: There are tools to discover which accounts are followed by fake accounts, so it is just a matter of time before you get exposed!
Therefore, instead of buying numbers, it is much better if you genuinely put some efforts into building a fan base who can later be your potential clients.
Hesitating to Build an Email List
During my journey, I have encountered quite a lot of WordPress residents who underestimate the power of email marketing. Sometimes, people just focus too much on lavish stuff and forget about the cheap old yet effective ones! Well, to be clear, some bloggers keep building content and promote it on social media with a large amount of money, while there is one cost-effective tool waiting to be used: an email list. For your information, one-fourth of the visitors visiting your site from the search engine is not likely to come back, that is if you don’t take any measure to invite them back!
Therefore, if you still have not got it done, how about building an email list to reach out to them and bring them back right away?
Neglecting Google Analytics
Never forget Google Analytics when there are decisions to be made! It can give you a lot more precious information than you think. In marketing, knowing who you are dealing with is one of the most vital keys to success. The more you know about your audience, the more likeliness you have to succeed with your marketing plan!
Thus, do not hesitate to take a look at those Google Analytics reports while doing your job. So, for those who have not installed this amazing tool, I suggest you go get it right away! Then, in order to use it and analyze reports, you can read one of those many tutorials on the Internet. Do not forget to be a little picky and choose one from a trustworthy source!
Wrapping Up
You see, making mistake is unavoidable, what matters is how we learn and improve from it! The same ideology applies to WordPress marketing, then there is just one tiny difference: this time, we learn from others’ mistakes.
And those tips above are just how we do it! Thinking of any more common and popular mistakes and how to solve them? Please do share with us in the comments!