Despite its aims remaining the same – to advertise your business and increase your income – marketing has changed significantly over the past couple of years with the digital revolution and the rise of technology. Although they are still used, traditional marketing streams like television and newspaper advertising have been somewhat pushed aside by digital marketing techniques such as search engine marketing and email marketing.
However, digital marketing is a relatively new field, and a lot of ‘experts’ actually don’t have a clue what they are talking about. This means that they often make mistakes, and some of these mistakes could be harming you and your business right now.
4 of the biggest modern digital marketing myths that we are aware of include:
- More traffic is always better:
Unfortunately, this definitely isn’t true. Sure, more traffic is usually a good thing, but let’s compare two situations. In the first situation, a so called digital marketing ‘expert’ creates a social media campaign which uses misleading information that encourages a lot of people to click on your link. This means that you will be getting a lot of people to your website who actually probably aren’t really interested in what you have to offer, which means that your bounce rate will be high. In the second situation, someone who actually knows what they are doing creates a highly targeted campaign which drives less visitors. However, the people who do make it to your website are actually interested in what you have to offer, and are therefore likely to hang around.
- A lot of people click on banner ads:
Unfortunately, a lot of new online entrepreneurs believe that they are going to make their fortune via banner advertising. However, this simply isn’t true. To begin with, a lot of people don’t trust these sort of ads, and won’t click on them because they are scared of getting viruses or other malware. Secondly, this sort of advertising is so pervasive that people simply don’t notice it anymore, especially when it is out of context and irrelevant to the things that they are looking for.
- Email marketing is outdated:
A lot of digital entrepreneurs seem to have developed the idea that email marketing equals spam. However, this simply isn’t true. If you are sending out high quality emails to relevant people who have actually signed up to your mailing list, you are in no way being spammy.
- I have to be on every social media platform:
This really isn’t slightly true, and in fact, trying to build a social media presence on too many platforms will probably do your business more harm than good. You will be better off dedicating your resources to building a strong presence on a couple of major platforms, than you would be if you spread your resources over too many different platforms.
Final Word:
Digital marketing is great, but you definitely shouldn’t believe everything that you hear. Different people will tell you different things, and a lot of self-proclaimed ‘experts’ really know very little at all. Do your research, speak to people who have actually developed a strong reputation through high quality service and results, and stop harming your business by believing common marketing myths.
