Inbound marketing

Avoid the Most Common Pitfalls in Inbound Marketing

In Blogging by Michael Phelps

It’s easy to make mistakes when doing inbound marketing, but it’s also part of the process. 

While you should always go for gold, coming up with a foolproof strategy at first shot is an impossible standard to live up to. As you begin your immersion into this other side of marketing, where the focus is on pulling people in (hence the word, ‘inbound’) instead of reaching out to them, one way to avoid unnecessary mistakes is to learn from others. In this guide, we look at three common inbound marketing mistakes.

Winging It

Inbound marketing might seem like a loose practice because of the role being “organic” plays in the process. In truth, because it is a process, it needs to be precise. And while there’s no better way to be precise than to have a plan.  After all, there needs to be some sort of roadmap in place. Otherwise how do you know how to get from Point A to Point B? 

Having a plan goes well beyond organization, however.  For starters, by allowing you to visualize your process, you avoid any lulls or mishaps between your brand and your target audience. Moreover, a plan ensures that everyone designated throughout the different inbound stages are on the same page as you give them a core to follow and go off on.

 

Not Having Your Content Available Natively on Your Website

Third-party blog sites like Medium and LinkedIn have solid traffic, which makes it easy to fall into the trap of doing your blogging there in order to get that much-needed reach for your content. Doing so won’t be a complete waste, but you stand to miss out on so many opportunities that blogging natively on your website has to offer.

Like what? Well, if one of your goals is getting people to your website to make an eventual purchase, you’ll have much more luck doing so if your blog posts have a navigation bar or other links that encourage them to give in to their curiosity and spend some time poking around your website. On the other hand, sticking to a third-party platform means your readers will have to take several extra steps before they get to see your offerings. You’ll also be foregoing the opportunity to improve your ranking with the search engines since you’ll be handing over your engagement and SEO efforts to another website.

Failing to Be Mobile-Friendly

As everything in business and even our day-to-day lives is becoming increasingly “mobile,” it’s important that your website and all other marketing efforts follow suit. People across all age groups are on their phones now more than ever and if you’re doing it right, your social media posts should be directing traffic to your website. So, if your website isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, there’s going to be a significant divide between the content you want people to be reading and what your readers want, which is text that can be easily scanned on a mobile device. In fact, 61% of Internet users are unlikely to revisit a website if they have a poor initial mobile experience.

Fortunately, Google has a comprehensive set of resources to help you make your website mobile-friendly, from an online test that checks if it’s already optimized for mobile to a complete guide for developing your website for mobile.

When in Doubt, Reach Out to Inbound Marketing Specialists

At Michigan Creative, we take a data-driven approach to inbound marketing, ensuring your strategies are built according to your brand, audience, and existing marketing infrastructure. Contact Michigan Creative and talk to one of our marketing experts to discuss your inbound strategy today.