At its best, online marketing allows you to swoop in like a superhero when a prospect needs help.
At its worst, it turns your brand into the creepy guy at the bar who can’t take a hint.
The line between helpful and nuisance can sometimes be difficult to see, so here are six common digital marketing annoyances that you might be guilty of – and how to avoid them.
Annoyance 1. Unwanted social interjections
Pop quiz: You’re monitoring social media when you spot a conversation that vaguely has something to do with your industry. What do you do?
A recent eMarketer study shows that roughly two in three people think that companies should respond only to comments made directly to them.
The lesson? Don’t leap into any conversation you find. Pick and choose the right ones for your brand. For example, more than 50 percent of people believe companies should respond to complaints on social media.
The most relevant content reaches the right person with the right message at the right time. (Image: MarketingSherpa)
Annoyance 2. Sending irrelevant emails
Your subscribers should be excited to open an email when you send it. And they will be – if you consistently offer relevant content.
Send the right email to the right person at the right time, and you’ll net a sale. Miss each of those marks and the only reason recipients will open your emails is to unsubscribe.
Deliver more relevant messaging by segmenting your email list. Some popular ways to segment are by geographic location, gender and transaction history to name a few.
Annoyance 3. Too much ‘me’ talk
Everyone has horror stories of a salesperson pushing too hard to make a sale. Don’t be that person on social media.
If you constantly sell, sell, sell, your fans and followers will tune you out – or worse yet, stop following you.
Instead, follow the advice of Melinda Emerson and offer helpful content or retweet other people four times for every piece of self-promotion.
Annoyance 4. Writing for search rankings
Yes, it is important to get found by search engines, but ‘writing for search engines’ will backfire.
First, search engines have become more sophisticated and know how to pass over sites that stuff keywords into content and practice other shady pieces of content creation.
Second, that type of writing won’t appeal to your target audience. Think about your customers’ problems and solve them. Doing this turns you from just another product pusher to a valuable, trusted resource.
(By the way, 82 percent of marketers place a higher value on writing for people than search engines.)
Annoyance 5. Not adapting to mobile
Marketers don’t need to consult a study to know that accessing content designed only for a desktop on a mobile device is difficult.
And since more email is read on mobile devices than computers, your email needs to look good on mobile. If it doesn’t, 70 percent of people will delete it and 18 percent will unsubscribe.
Mobile marketing expert Shel Holtz not only recommends optimizing for mobile, he recommends optimizing for various mobile devices because how people use smartphones differs greatly from how they use tablets.
Annoyance 6. Delivering too many (or too few) emails
There’s no magic number to determine if you send too many emails. If your messaging fills your subscribers’ needs, your recipients will tolerate and even welcome more frequent emails.
An easy way to tell whether you’re annoying customers with too frequent messaging? Watch to see if your unsubscriber rates have increased and open rates have dropped. That’s a cue you’ve gone too far. Pull back and reexamine your content and how often you deliver it.
What annoyances did we miss?