Experimentation with digital marketing gimmicks is key for a brand’s success. There are many gimmicks that can lead to new visitors, customers, and conversions. However, there’s inherently a risk associated with new digital marketing gimmicks. If you make a mistake, your blunder is on the Internet to be screenshotted, Retweeted, and shared by anyone. There have been dozens of brands who have tried gimmicks and failed spectacularly, damaging their online reputation and breaking trust with their customers.
Check out our suggestions for digital marketing strategies to avoid that could damage your brand. As long as you stay away from these common digital marketing blunders, your strategies should help you gain new customers and increase conversions.
- A misguided contest
We’ve talked about how great social media contests can be for boosting brand awareness and sales. However, a misguided contest can spell disaster for your brand.
Social media contests require very clear rules and guidelines to ensure that your followers participate correctly. When you run a contest, you’re turning the control over to the users. You need to make sure that the rules are clear enough for them to follow without the contest getting out of control. You don’t want people commandeering your hashtag for another purpose or posting images or Tweets that could hurt your brand.
Another important point is to remember to name your winner. There have been examples of companies running a contest and then not announcing or choosing a winner at all. This does not bode well with users who invested their time and money into your contest. Always choose a prize that you are comfortable with and ensure that someone receives it for participating!
- Clickbait articles
Clickbait has taken over the digital world in recent years and will likely continue to grow. Social media, search engines, even news sources are using clickbait to boost visits to websites and engage new users.
The real issue with clickbait comes in when clickbait is misleading. Any content you write for a webpage needs to support the headline. If you write a sensationalist clickbait title hoping to get as many clicks as possible but your content doesn’t relate or back it up, your readers will not be happy. They likely won’t convert or return to your website in the future, meaning you lost a potential customer or reader.
- High pressure tactics
While a high pressure landing page may seem like a great way to increase conversions, but this digital marketing gimmick will actually do you more harm in the long run. Using phrases like ‘BUY NOW’ or ‘CLICK HERE’ or ‘LOOK OVER HERE’, in capital letters and with excessive exclamation points, can turn a lot of users off very quickly. Using bright colours, flashing lights, or gifs can confuse your users and make your site seem spammy.
Further than just appearing spam-like, it may actually trigger spam filters in Google which could lower your ranking on the search engine results page. Your online reputation will drop, leading to fewer clicks and fewer conversions.
- Hashtags that aren’t thought out
We cannot overemphasize the importance of hashtags. Creating your own hashtags or using existing ones effectively can bring new users to your social media accounts and website, create a buzz around your brand, and increase your sales.
However, we are no strangers to seeing the social media disasters that come from some hashtags that aren’t thought through all the way. Whether from incorrect spelling, spelling that could be misconstrued as something else, or choosing inappropriate phrases, the wrong hashtag can give your brand a lot of bad publicity very quickly, with little you can do to reverse it.
When you’re choosing a hashtag, make sure to look at it from all angles and do your research on the types of things being talked about with that hashtag. You don’t want to associate your brand with the wrong topics just because you hashtagged something incorrectly.
- Rebranding or reformulating
Rebranding or reformulating products can be a great way to refresh and widen your audience. However, if your audience is growing steadily already and your products are successful and well-loved, why fix what isn’t broken?
There have been many brands that have decided to change their logos, slogans, products, or target audience and instead of appealing to a new demographic, instead just alienated their old, loyal demographic. Rebranding is not a cheap endeavor, so if it’s unsuccessful, you could be facing a lot of lost revenue in addition to lost customers.
Unless you are absolutely positive that rebranding or reformulating products will boost your brand awareness and audience, it can be a very risky digital marketing gimmick that could cause you to lose some loyal customers.
Looking to boost your brand’s online visibility? VivosWeb knows the gimmicks and digital marketing strategies to avoid and the ones to use to help you succeed. Contact us today for digital marketing.
