The landscape of the digital marketing world is constantly evolving. Strategies and tactics fall in and out of favor quite fast, which is why I’ve prepared a list of nine obsolete marketing strategies you should nix from your 2013 marketing game plan.
QR Codes
Newer technologies like near-field communications (NFC) and other apps are rending the QR code obsolete. Without unified standards, competing solutions like Microsoft Tag create confusion and annoyance as they might require download of additional apps. The bottom line: Be cautious when using QR codes; make sure they solve a problem better than newer, more intuitive technologies.
Keyword-based search engine optimization
As Google gets smarter, the algorithm relies less on keyword placement and more on context. Google is also now hiding search terms from your referring search engine traffic logs. As “not provided” data become a bigger part of our analytics reporting, marketers are forced to spend more time and effort on content and contextual analysis.
Creating content for content’s sake
Creating compelling content can be expensive and daunting for many organizations. Companies tend to rely on cheap solutions including outsourcing blog and article creation. Even more sophisticated marketers are falling short with advanced content strategies around audio, video, and images by creating useless or boring content. If you can’t create compelling, unique, or remarkable content that provides value to your target end user, you might be hurting your brand more than helping it.
Untargeted retargeting
Retargeting (aka, remarketing) is an advanced technique that effectively targets visitors to your website via advertising on third-party websites. Unfortunately, too many marketers have failed to customize the ad creative based on segment or goal. Consumers can be easily annoyed by brands that overtly follow them around the web with seemingly irrelevant offers or, more importantly, with very targeted messaging, but long after they’ve purchased.
Avoiding landing page testing
Not maximizing conversions through a consistent testing program is quickly dying out as a trend. Increasingly, companies are leveraging intuitive and affordable landing page and conversion optimization platforms like LiveBall to refine page design, messaging, and offers to maximize conversions.
Ignoring personalization and behavioral targeting
Using the same website content or messaging as a one-size-fits-all solution for a diverse audience has become an ineffective strategy. Beyond segmenting email lists and messaging, using behavioral targeting to personalize recommendations or offers has shown to dramatically increase retention and conversion rates.
Underestimating the power of video (and audio) marketing
Video is the most compelling story-telling medium, has higher recall than other forms of media, and can be repurposed as audio, images and text from a single HD recording. Research shows internet users are conducting informational searches in YouTube, so content should be created for all stages of the buying cycle. If you aren’t in the game in 2013, you could likely be out of the game completely soon after.
Gaming reviews and buying followers
While generating fake reviews or buying real reviews have been effective historically, review sites and consumers are getting smarter. Consumers are getting smarter about sniffing out fake or paid reviews. Review sites are also wising up, improving algorithms to identify and remove fake reviews. Minimally, cheaters will waste precious time and money securing reviews that ultimately get removed or simply ignored.
Making decisions based on the wrong social metrics
Social media marketing is relatively immature from a measurement perspective. Many companies measure social success based on the net increase of “likes,” followers, and fans. The most important metrics are relative: engagement or conversions as a percentage of total “likes,” followers, or fans. Maintaining or improving the ratio is more difficult than it might seem, but doing so will result in a more informed social strategy.
You can check out the full version of this article on iMedia Connection.