According to Expert Market Research (EMR), the global digital marketing industry is expected to grow at a rate of 17. per cent, reaching over €700 billion by 2026. Marketers are flocking to digital media hoping to attract and retain customers in an increasingly complex and competitive business landscape. Yet despite investing heavily in digital marketing, their investments seem to have little returns. Why?

Many businesses feel like their digital marketing efforts are sinking faster than a leaky canoe and they’re losing money by the bucket load. Having worked with several businesses in a similar situation, we understand the feeling. 

You’ve invested in a multi-channel marketing campaign — paid search, social media, content marketing, you name it. You’re seeing the factors that contribute to success in other businesses and are excited about hitting your targets. But nothing’s working out. 

What Are The Signs That My Digital Marketing Strategy Isn’t Working?

Digital marketing is one of the most important aspects of running a successful business. But even for experienced business owners, it can be difficult to tell whether your digital marketing strategy is effective or not. Many businesses only seek the help of digital marketing experts when it’s too late.

Here are some of the tell-tale signs your digital marketing efforts aren’t working:

• You hardly get traffic on your website : The first sign of trouble is when you have low organic traffic on your website. A fully engaged audience will visit multiple pages on your website. You should also watch out for the bounce rates. If your visitors leave your website as soon as they click through, there’s something you need to work on. 

You may need to improve the quality of your content, optimize your website, or leverage visual content to attract and retain web visitors.

• You have traffic but no conversions: Traffic alone isn’t enough. It’s only a small part of the equation. You need to translate the numbers into sales. If you can’t convert your thousands of web visitors into paying customers, you are doing something wrong. Especially at the lower end of the sales funnel. It’s why your digital marketing budget keeps bleeding with little to no ROI. 
• You are not attracting your target audience: You may have a high number of website traffic, but it doesn’t help much if it’s not from your target audience. It is a sign of a big problem. The wrong audience means very minimal chances of converting them to paying customers. 

You may want to build better buyer personas and create the right type of content if you notice that your web visitors aren’t your primary target audience.

• You have low returns on your paid ads: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) usually helps to generate highly targeted traffic to your website. So you if notice that your paid ads are giving you low returns in terms of traffic and conversions, something’s definitely wrong with your PPC strategy. Either you’re not creating the right search engine and social ads or you’re not using them correctly.

You should tailor your PPC ads to those who’ll most likely be interested in buying your product or requesting your services. 

Reasons Your Digital Marketing Isn’t Working

Digital marketing is a fantastic tool for marketers to increase their ROI but only if you’re able to track them to see whether or not they’re working for your business. Here are 10 reasons your effort isn’t paying off:

1. You’re focusing on the wrong channels

If you’re a plumber, it might be hard to get traction writing blog posts about “plumbing tips.” That’s because your prospective customers aren’t looking for plumbing tips – they just want to Google “plumber in [my city]” and pick one of the top 2 results. Your “tips and tricks blog post” is great marketing, but it won’t help you win business if no one reads it. So don’t focus on blogging or Facebook if those aren’t where your sales prospects are hanging out online.

On the other hand, maybe there are certain types of customers who would benefit from a blog post about DIY plumbing fixes that could save them money (or maybe even prevent an expensive repair). Or maybe if you have a staff member who does amazing work at community events like fun runs or outdoor concerts, Instagram would be an ideal way to document what your company has been up to lately and spread goodwill in your market. 

The point is this: not every digital channel will benefit your business – so do some research into which channels make sense for YOUR business before investing too heavily in any of them.

2. You’re doing everything yourself

There’s so much to be done in every business, sometimes it’s easy to overlook the impact of trying to do too much. If you find yourself wearing multiple hats or constantly working late, it might be a good idea to re-evaluate what sort of tasks you should outsource and make sure you’re focusing your time on your core business.

It’s okay to hire marketing help. 

Read why you should outsource digital marketing services.

3. Your strategy is opaque, not transparent.

To build trust and establish a dynamic, long-term relationship with your audience, you need to embrace transparency. That means sharing your plans and goals with the world. In fact, all companies would do well to step back for a moment and ask themselves: what’s the value of our marketing strategy? Why does it matter so much? 

The truth is that it’s about more than building awareness or driving engagement. It’s about creating a sense of openness and communication with your customers. Remember: these are people who are looking for real solutions from real people. They want to hear from you!

4. You don’t have clear goals

Your company may spend a lot of time and money setting up marketing campaigns, but without clear goals, you aren’t likely to see the huge returns you want. For example, “raise brand awareness” isn’t very specific. It is a vague objective that’s difficult to measure. How will you know if you’ve reached your goal? 

When possible, your goals should be concrete and measurable. Some examples of good digital marketing goals include:

• Grow our email subscribers by 20 per cent in Quarter Two
• Increase customer retention rate by 30 per cent in three months
• Decrease bounce rate on the homepage by five per cent in two months

5. Your content is boring

It’s time for a reality check. Your content is boring! Sorry to be so blunt, but how else can we say it? When consumers are overloaded with information, they rarely care about your services or products. They want to know what’s in it for them and what they can get out of it. 

If you’re not creating fresh content that showcases the problem you solve in a way that makes readers pay attention and care, then you’re going to have difficulty getting people to engage with your site and convert from readers into leads. Create content that aligns with your target audience. 

6. Your website isn’t user friendly

Your website should be easy to navigate, with a clear call to action. Does your website work well on mobile devices? You need a responsive design that looks great and functions properly across a range of devices from laptops to tablets. Is your copy informative and relevant? A poorly written, badly designed website makes for a frustrating visitor experience. Make sure you have a clearly defined offer, product or service page, about page, and contact page. If you haven’t worked on your website in two years or more, it’s time for an overhaul.

7. You’re not using automation

Automation is a method of leveraging data and software to streamline repetitive actions that would otherwise take up a lot of your time. One of the areas where you can leverage automation is email marketing and lead generatio. 

For example, you can use your website’s traffic data and customer behaviour patterns to create goals that help convert potential customers into actual leads. Then they can set up a system that automatically monitors when site visitors reach those goals and classifies them as leads. Leads are then followed up with emails or other communications if they haven’t already been reached out to by sales personnel.

8. You want to do everything at the same time

Trying to expand product offerings and reaching multiple markets at the same time can be disastrous. You will stretch yourself thin and come out with nothing. You dilute the impact of your marketing strategy when you try to explore multiple marketing options at the same time. Find what works for your business and focus on it. You don’t have to be all over the place.

9. You don’t offer a value proposition

Value proposition vs. feature listing– what do your clients want to see?

This is a debate that won’t end any time soon. But the truth is that your clients don’t care much about the features of your business or products. They want to know how your business and products can help them solve their everyday problems. They want value proposition.

While it is essential to have a great product, customers will likely hear the same message from your competitors about their products. Instead of promoting the mere features of your products, you are better off stating the benefits. You can enhance the credibility of your brand by providing social proof such as case studies and testimonials.

10. You fail to monitor your campaigns

Brands that thrive in digital marketing constantly monitor, track, and tweak their digital marketing campaigns. If you don’t, you may not realize something’s wrong until it’s too late. You are destined for mediocrity. Your job doesn’t end when a marketing campaign goes live. That’s only half of the job.

After that, you have to listen to your audience’s reaction, perform A/B testing, identify issues, and make the necessary changes to your campaigns. Whatever isn’t working well, fix it.

Revamp Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Digital marketing takes a lot of work, but it can pay off with a solid strategy and process. We know how important digital marketing is for businesses today, but we also know that it can be difficult to execute. Even the smallest changes take time, and having a strategy in place is vital to seeing any sort of results. 

If you aren’t seeing any ROI on your marketing efforts, we can help you revamp your digital marketing strategy. We have helped thousands of Irish businesses like yours to turn things around and boost their conversion rates.Get started on exceptional digital marketing services, tailored to your business needs, today.