7 Things People Dislike About Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Gone are the days of static, one-dimensional roadside billboards and old-school junk mail. With the expansion of the modern marketer’s toolkit, reaching prospective customers is easier than ever before. However, the problem is many marketers tend to miss the point. Marketing isn’t merely about receiving consumer attention – it’s about whether the attention that you receive is positive or negative. It’s about getting people to actually like your brand. That’s the difference between effective and ineffective advertising: if done poorly, your campaign can easily scare consumers off instead of nudging them to take action. AMA Tampa Bay believes that knowing this difference and what turns people away is crucial for your business’s success. Here are seven things people dislike about your digital marketing strategy.

Gone are the days of static, one-dimensional roadside billboards and old-school junk mail. With the expansion of the modern marketer’s toolkit, reaching prospective customers is easier than ever before. However, the problem is many marketers tend to miss the point. Marketing isn’t merely about receiving consumer attention – it’s about whether the attention that you receive is positive or negative. It’s about getting people to actually like your brand. That’s the difference between effective and ineffective advertising: if done poorly, your campaign can easily scare consumers off instead of nudging them to take action. AMA Tampa Bay believes that knowing this difference and what turns people away is crucial for your business’s success. Here are seven things people dislike about your digital marketing strategy.

Things people dislike about your digital marketing strategy

#1 Forced registration

Every online brand’s goal is to increase the user database. And one of the most commonly used strategies to achieve that goal is urging unwanted registration. But in reality, barring your audience from accessing your full content without creating an account or signing up for a newsletter seems counterproductive. More often than not, it can drive people away and cause lost sales. Most folks associate it with extra steps and extra hassle, unwanted emails, concerns about poor data protection, et cetera. And, with so much content available on the Internet for free, why even bother? A much better strategy would be to make your content easily accessible and the registration process optional and straightforward. Your visitors will appreciate it.

#2 Aggressive pop-ups

There’s probably nothing that consumers dislike about your digital marketing approach more than those annoying pop-ups swamping their screens. They’re so universally hated that even their originator, Ethan Zuckerman, has publicly apologized for his creation. They are annoying, interruptive, and distracting; they hijack not only visitors’ displays but the entire user experience.

Still, the data is speaking loud and clear: pop-up forms work, and they can grow your list of subscribers. But the question is: do you just want email subscribers? Or do you want email subscribers genuinely interested in what you have to say? And what about all those visitors who will be annoyed and abandon whatever initially attracted them to your website? Your call.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t use ads or sponsored content. Only be sure they’re non-aggravating by strategically placing them around your content and site. You want people to want to give you their info and not bully them into doing so.

#3 Autoplay videos

Video content is a highly effective marketing tool. Videos can help create buzz around your brand and keep your site fresh and engaging. They can help show off new products and services and build trust and deeper relationships with prospective and existing clients. It’s a smart move to incorporate them on your website – as long as they don’t start the moment visitors land on your page out of the blue, surprising them with a mini heart attack and making them click away in horror! Sound-on auto-play ads are high on the list of online pet peeves and certainly one of the things that people probably hate about your digital marketing tactic. There are so many ways to incorporate videos into your marketing strategy that aren’t so disruptive, frustrating, and plain annoying.

#4 Overusing social media

With over 3.5 billion people spending an average of 3 hours on social media, it is easy to see why so many marketers are making a leap into the social media circle. It can be an invaluable tool to expand your reach, attract attention, gain traffic, spread awareness of your service or product, and, consequently, increase sales. And the idea behind it is relatively simple: you create a page or profile on different social media sites and make your product or service available.

Sounds easy, right?

As it turns out, despite the straightforwardness, convenience, and ease of social media marketing, there are still quite a few ways everything can go downhill. For instance, an effective campaign can mean knowing the difference between maximizing your social media and overusing it. That’s why it’s crucial to develop a social media strategy. Rather than bombarding your audience with low-value content, use a content calendar to plan your posts and keep your content quality, relevant, valuable, and entertaining rather than sales-focused.

#5 Bad website layouts & design

Building trust is difficult enough as it is. Don’t risk killing it with a poorly designed page and lack of user-centricity. Bad web designs are easy to spot: a confusing layout, navigation issues, non-responsive design, accessibility issues… It’s enough to frustrate the life out of anyone visiting your website. Brands should know better! According to wpfullcare.com, a design that feeds into your UX and functionality and appropriately complements your content should be high on your totem pole of website priorities. Nothing worse than putting in all your time and effort into pumping high-quality content, only for it to go unnoticed due to a poor web design and layout.

#6 Offering something for free, but hiding it behind a paywall

Nothing can erode users’ trust quite like a lack of transparency. Marketing something free of charge and with no strings attached, only to put up a paywall at the last minute leaves consumers feeling “tricked.” They’ve gone through the trouble of providing their email, contact information, and seven more pages worth of data you asked for. They’ve invested their time. And now they’re finding that on the last page, they have to pay in advance to receive access to those perks that were promised to them for free. Leaving out such an important detail as payment terms can make the user feel frustrated, cause them to bail out, or, worse yet, cause them to associate your brand with dishonesty.

#7 Post-purchase badgering

Post-purchase customer experience may also be one of the things people dislike about your digital marketing strategy. Certainly, building community and loyalty with your existing customers should be at the front and center of your marketing approach, and follow-up is a crucial part of it. However, brands can easily overlook the importance of keeping the balance and overdo it. At that point, it becomes sheer badgering. Don’t forget: finding customers can take months, and losing them… well, that takes seconds. So, always be sure that your follow-up email is well-timed and wisely drafted.

Wrapping it up!

Unfortunately, the seven strategies we discussed today aren’t the only marketing strategies your customers may find annoying. Though they are some of the most common, the ones that marketing companies need to rethink or even ditch completely. This is crucial to establishing trust with your audience and ensuring a positive customer and user experience. If you’re guilty of using some of them, there is no need to worry. The mere fact that you’re interested in finding out what things people dislike about your digital marketing strategy means you’re on the right path!

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