Digital Marketing

14 Common Digital Marketing Myths

It's no secret that digital marketing is misunderstood. Here are 14 common digital marketing myths you need to avoid.

By DMJ Team

Digital marketing lets marketers reach people all over the country thanks to their messages. Apparently, many newbies think they’re experts in digital marketing because it’s easy…..

It’s never as simple as you think as professional marketers are well aware.

It’s no secret that digital marketing is misunderstood because many people think it can be flawlessly implemented without much direction.

Another myth, and a very common one, is that it’s incredibly difficult. These two digital marketing myths are undisputed myths that many marketers believe.

It’s always somewhere in the middle that lies the truth. Planning and execution are key to the success of a digital marketing campaign. Otherwise, your marketing efforts might fail without a carefully thought-out strategy.

The misconceptions will certainly win in the end when you let them.

Here are 14 digital marketing myths you need to avoid if you want to be a successful marketer.

1. My Business is too small to worry about digital marketing

Digital marketing is often misunderstood to serve the needs of only large companies and major brands. Small businesses are also thought to be hard-pressed to market effectively.

Digital marketing has more benefits for small businesses than for large corporations. A loyal base of customers can be built by utilizing social media and micro-influencers.

It is word of mouth that forms the basis of digital marketing. You can only spread the message using digital marketing.

In the end, it’s your business strategies that determine whether ideas or products become viral. You should be more concerned with the quality of your strategies than the size of your business.

There is no doubt that marketing your products and services will require some effort on the part of some companies, but it isn’t impossible to achieve gains.

To have your product displayed, you need only express interest. It will eventually interest people to buy it.

2. Providing for my customers’ needs is what I do best

Having an accurate understanding of your customers is tempting. There is no truth to that.

Products and their customers both change and evolve. The products of the future are shaped by their current needs and demands. It doesn’t mean you’re the only option for them just because you’ve already solved their problem once.

You should not be surprised if your once loyal customers shift to your competitors if you offer a better deal than they do.

Maintaining your loyal customers’ engagement is in your business’ best interests, so that they are constantly utilizing your products and services.

Your offerings should be adjusted in accordance with the market’s shortcomings.

Customers’ needs change with time – just like businesses, they need to be addressed. Do not assume that your customers’ needs are constant and already met.

3. I will get marketing assistance from a friend

Digital marketing might be an area of expertise for certain colleagues. The problem with relying on them for business growth is that they may not prove beneficial.

Certainly, they are experts at marketing. Are they as knowledgeable about your audience as you are?

Is your business designed to address the specific needs and pain points of your customers? Our emotions come first, then our rationality.

Regardless of how marketing is carried out, that standard holds true.

Marketers succeed when they appeal to the right emotions. If you let your friends and colleagues handle your marketing, they might struggle to connect with audiences.

Marketers should remember that marketing isn’t just a set of actions, many of which are emotional.

4. Effective marketing generates results immediately

Most people believe this myth. Marketers are working in no industry instantaneously.

Digital marketing is a particularly enduring axiom regarding the nature of good things.

There is a wide variety of response times among mediums. Results in marketing are never immediate, as things have a way of taking their own course. Throughout your journey, you need to be patient.

Sales and figures may not meet your expectations, even when you run a great campaign.

It is vital to stay focused on the long-term goal, however. The sooner you achieve success, the easier it will become.

The rabbit and the tortoise story comes to mind, right? The winner of that race is obvious. Long-term success comes from patience.

Although there are various tools to find your real-time reach, it can take quite a few weeks for a piece of content to resonate with prospects. It’s completely normal for that to happen.

5. Creating content

Content creation includes blogging. Content creation ends with blogging, which is another misconception that is extremely prevalent.

Blogs, articles, and snippets are only part of digital content marketing.

The other forms of content consumers consume haven’t caught your attention if you thought these were the only approaches.

It is possible to express content in an auditory, visual, or written form. A wide array of options are available for you to explore, including webpages, tweets, and live tweets, as well as whitepapers, eBooks, and podcasts.

Learn how to create content that is appealing to your customers. Content strategies need to be developed based on this information.

HootSuite reports that people use social media to the tune of 3.48 billion. The world’s population is 45% larger than that! Are you saying that blogs alone can serve their needs?

6. Marketing budget needs to be cut because sales are down

Small businesses usually have limited budgets. Business budgets often get slashed during tough times in order to stay afloat.

The mistake businesses make when their sales fall is to reduce their marketing budgets.

You are making a grave and fatal mistake if you do this. You have any sales at all because of your marketing efforts.

Putting marketing on hold when sales are slow is like uprooting a plant after just a few flowers have withered.

You are less likely to increase your sales if you do not have a solid marketing campaign behind you. The chances of that happening are much higher if marketing budgets are cut.

Concentrating solely on departments that perform poorly is a much better strategy. You can prevent a disease from developing by paying enough attention to the symptoms.

7. B2B companies should not utilize digital marketing

Digital marketing is seen as a non-issue by many B2B organizations (especially startups). By attempting to use digital marketing, they believe it is unproductive because it is effective only for B2C.

The opposite could not be further from the truth. Therefore, they’ve wasted a great deal of time believing in it.

Businesses – big and small – are using digital marketing strategies in large numbers, as evidenced by the amount of online businesses. Lots of opportunities exist.

See, for example, what Hootsuite or Hubspot can do, or IBM’s social media strategy.

No matter what industry a business is from, whether B2B or B2C, digital marketing can help them grow.

If you’re looking to reach decision-makers through LinkedIn, this is the best place to start. Smaller businesses should use Facebook if you are targeting them.

8. Too much money is being spent on digital marketing

Digital marketing is popular among several companies but they decide not to invest in it for cost reasons.

During its early years, the company had a small staff. This changed when it became more popular and accepted.

As a strategy, digital marketing is affordable and guarantees results. Today, you have a lot of options depending on your strategy.

Marketing assistance is easy to come by. Nowadays, there are numerous digital marketing agencies available who can develop a plan based on your specific needs.

In addition to these platforms, Google, Facebook, and Instagram also offer startups financial support to help them gain visibility for their brands.

9. Search engine optimization does not exist

I think it’s ridiculous that SEO is not a factor in marketing or that it does not play a role thereat.

That’s probably the most damaging myth of all.

The importance of SEO has never diminished. Recent times have only increased its significance.

Google’s complex, constantly changing algorithm determines if anything published on the web qualifies for ranking on the search engine.

Your goal is to outperform your competitors in order to rank high.

Be sure to have plenty of keywords in your online content, and to make sure it creates a positive user experience.

Your website’s pages will be optimized this way, and your site will perform better as a result.

10. Measuring and quantifying is too difficult

When businesses don’t understand how things work, this is often the case.

It’s likely that a company will initially become overwhelmed with analytics when launching a digital marketing campaign.

If you’re unfamiliar with analytics, they can be very challenging to use.

However, it can be disheartening just to look at the sheer amount of data. As you examine data in detail, you realize that it tells a story.

Analyses are your best friend once you understand them. Insights about your marketing campaign are gained from them in many ways.

Analyzing helps you check whether your content is successful, as well as the response of its users. Your business strategies can be tweaked and implemented by analyzing your analytics.

Several new applications emerge every day that provide better real-time data analysis.

It even goes so far as to tell you how many people have seen and reacted to your posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

11. Getting new leads is the sole purpose of marketing

In most businesses, lead generation is the main reason for launching a marketing campaign.

There’s no reason to believe this, though it might be a contributing factor.

The majority of businesses assume marketing campaigns are ineffective when their lead generation drops. An extremely specific problem can be solved in a general way.

The common digital marketing mistake businesses make is failing to realize that lead nurturing campaigns are equally essential to conversion as marketing.

Nonetheless, they aren’t mutually exclusive, even though they’re independent components of the same process.

Your long-term customers deserve strategies designed accordingly. A rule of thumb for this is 80/20.

The customers you want to recommend your brand to others are the ones who can help you bring in new business. Taking care of them is your responsibility.

12. Digital marketing isn’t appropriate for the industry

In the world of content marketing, entertainment is often associated with it (erroneously).

Content marketing is certainly entertaining in some cases, but to generalize that is inaccurate.

Entertainment is not the only purpose of content marketing. Additionally, it provides valuable information about the industry. It only differs in that it uses conversational, simplified language to do so.

There is no slight on academic rigor by the death of buzzwords and jargon. Information has become more accessible and easier to comprehend due to content marketing.

Your customers will appreciate content you curate if you start with content they need to know.

Your clients may ask you questions, so answer them first. How would you feel if you had the opportunity to provide them with information in the future? Imagine yourself in their shoes.

Despite B2B interactions, we are dealing with people and not businesses. Despite the formality, they do not demand that you suppress your creative side.

13. Only technical people should be involved in digital marketing

Ignorance again leads to this sort of misperception. Among myths, digital marketing is seen as informal, whereas among others, it is viewed as technical.

Believing in either of them is equally dangerous.

You don’t need to be an expert at technology to be a digital marketer. Experience is the best way to acquire familiarity, but familiarity isn’t something that can’t be learned.

Keep your audience engaged by catering to their needs.

Digital marketing does not require much technical know-how. The technical aspects will become more apparent to you as time goes on. If you think learning something is impossible, don’t let that stop you!

In the absence of an audience, how do you reconnect? Starting over is the only option. Make sure you know who your target audience is, target them now, and start marketing to them as soon as possible.

14. We don’t have any online buyers

This statement was probably true ten years ago. Ten years can bring about a lot of change as we can see.

Even the notion that your buyer persona does not do online shopping is ridiculous today. The likelihood of your buyer persona not being online is very slim due to the growing use of social media and digital technologies.

People are using mobile devices more and more, making the internet more accessible. Thus, more and more clients are searching for organizations that are best suited to their needs.

Customer interests have tilted the scales in the customer’s favor. Businesses can now be found based on customer requirements rather than searching on the Internet. Instead of searching for customers, these businesses look for customers they can serve through digital marketing.

Can you really think that you will not be able to pinpoint your buyer persona online for such a scenario?

Marketers should take note that ignorance is not bliss. Nevertheless, they have lost revenues and customers because of half-baked facts.

Even seasoned marketers are still discovering the ins and outs of digital marketing, which is only fitting for our final statement. This trend is expected to persist for the foreseeable future, as it has experienced exponential growth in the last few years. We’re truly witnessing the beginning of something remarkable, as it will form the backbone of marketing in the future.

Make the most of this opportunity by becoming a participant, instead of an observer!

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