8 tips for marketing — bad ones — that you should avoid

According to Forrester, digital marketing — including email and social media — costs businesses nearly $105 billion. Avoid these bad tips for marketing and going down the wrong road.

This is no small amount, especially when you’re a smaller business. So, when paying your marketing bills, you certainly want to follow tips for marketing that work.

With that thought in mind, here are eight pieces of advice that some people recommend, but which you should avoid implementing in your own digital marketing strategy:

1. “You should be on every social media platform possible.”

While this seems like good advice on the surface, especially with Statista reporting that there are an estimated 2.35 billion social network users worldwide, it’s only good in part. Yes, you do want to be on some social media platforms, but you definitely don’t need to be on all of them.

Pick the ones that make the most sense for you (because those are the ones your target market spends the most time on) and forget the rest.

2. “Save time and automate your social media posts.”

There is a huge push nowadays to automate as many activities as we can in order to save some much-needed time. However, putting your social media posts on autopilot can put you out of touch with your followers.

Plus, prescheduled posts way in advance may be out of sync or (worse yet) be in bad taste with the news of the day.

3. “The best way to grow your email list is to buy it.”

Because building an email list can take time, it’s pretty tempting to purchase one instead. But one problem with this piece of advice is that lists can be expensive.

Furthermore, it’s a quick way to get yourself marked as a spammer, an action that Business Insider reports can lock up your account if more than 0.5% of your emails are tagged as such by the receivers.

4. “If you want to make a big impact, personalize your emails as much as possible.”

Admittedly, some personalization is good as it can help you better connect with your target market.

However, personalize too much and you can easily take your emails from welcome inbox finds to messages that make the receiver wonder if you know too much about them. Tips for marketing include — “If you personalize, avoid the creepiness factor.”

5. “The best time to send your business emails is Monday at 9 a.m.”

The issue with this digital marketing advice is that there’s no one day and time that is best for all markets. So, take a look at your list and send your email at a time when they’re most likely to open it and read it.

This may be Monday at 9 a.m., but it may also be Saturday at 2 p.m. If you’re not sure, try different days and times and see which one offers the best response.

6. “When it comes to marketing content, keywords rule so use them as often as you can.”

In the early days of the internet, getting found online required that your content be keyword-rich. Today’s tips for marketing say search engines pay more attention to topics than keywords or phrases, making the value of keyword-stuffing a thing of the past.

This enables you to focus on quality instead, giving your readers a reason to keep coming back for more. Focus first on content quality.

7. “The only one who should be posting on your site is you.”

While it’s true that you likely know more about chiropractic than anyone else in your office,  that doesn’t mean that you’re the one who should be solely responsible for your blog or newsletter.

This is especially true if you don’t have time (limiting how often you’re able to post) or if you’re not the best writer. Whether you assign this duty to other office staff or even hire it out, sometimes delegating this responsibility is the best thing you can do.

8. “It’s best to be passive in your posts or else you’ll sound too demanding.”

Marketing 101 tells us that if there’s something you want your target market to do, you have to ask them to do it. This applies to digital marketing as well.

Want your followers to comment on, like, or share your posts? Ask them to do it. Would you like them to share your email with their family and friends? Tell them that. If you don’t ask them to do something, they likely won’t do it on their own.