Obsolete digital marketing strategies 2010-2011
In addition to these latest obsolete strategies, it's worth reviewing those from years past as well. When compiling trends for the 2010 article, I talked with my team and industry peers and conducted a good deal of research. Filtering my findings against my own digital experience dating back to 1996, I defined seven strategies no longer relevant to future success. Below is a brief recap:
Building a digital marketing team. In today's world, marketing teams should be media agnostic and develop integrated marketing campaigns by leveraging the expertise of traditional and digital-native professionals. While many marketing teams are still somewhat segmented, true media and discipline integration is increasingly popular.
Designing a website via internal stakeholder committee. The enemy of good design is groupthink. The larger the organization, the more likely the corporate website will lack creativity, consistency, and clear messaging. Google's latest algorithm updates now reward exceptionally designed websites that provide an optimal user experience. Google's algorithm is now the new stakeholder, which will reward well-designed sites with high rankings.
Managing e-marketing campaigns to impressions, clicks, or budget forecasts. A significant number of marketing campaigns are now managed based on conversions, thanks to advances in analytics and paranoia from the VPs and CMOs. Additionally, marketers now understand the importance of relative metrics, particularly for social media. The remaining marketers that still rely on outdated metrics will soon be relics of the past.
Paying third-party vendors to represent your brand in social media. Thank goodness this trend is finally taking a turn in the right direction. Many brands are taking social media management in-house, after agencies and consultants have fallen woefully short. Effectively managed in-house social media does require new thinking and evangelism. Remaining social media agencies must rethink their approach in order to stay relevant.
Doing black-hat SEO. I wrote this article before Panda and Penguin updates took hold. Those updates meaningfully affected rankings for companies failing to follow best practices for content creation, site design, and link development. Finally, the intersection of good search engine optimization, marketing, and website design is here, and this trend is very real.
Renting email lists. As far as I can tell, the idea that you can rent an email list and expect to generate tons of qualified leads is a long-dead concept, thanks to CAN-SPAM compliance and savvier consumers. Now, more than ever, marketers are relying on search engine and social media marketing and other strategies to generate leads rather than relying on ineffective email list rentals.
Sending unsegmented or untargeted emails. The rapid adoption of sales and marketing automation platforms has led to a much higher level of list segmentation and generation of highly targeted emails. Gone are the days of blanket emails to a large database, at least for truly successful organizations.
The digital marketing landscape is dynamic. In order to stay on top of the latest trends, you must have the discipline to continually test, learn, and network. Two additional helpful resources for looking forward include these articles: "2013 Search Engine & Social Media Marketing Predictions You Can't Ignore" and "5 digital trends you need to embrace."
Kent Lewis is president and founder of Anvil Media, a search engine marketing agency based in Portland, Ore.
On Twitter? Follow Lewis at @kentjlewis. Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.
"Illustration with spider web" and "computer designed grunge border" images via Shutterstock.
