3 Mistakes You’re Probably Making in Social & Digital Marketing

So you want to generate consistent sales and grow an impactful brand? A brand that has a strong community rallying behind it and is growing month over month, year over year.

And you’re doing your best to craft a comprehensive social and digital marketing strategy that generates leads and turns those leads into customers… But you feel like you’re coming up short.

If you’re having trouble growing your social following, getting returns on your social advertising, or not seeing any positive email engagement in the form of opens and conversions – then this article is for YOU.

Here are three mistakes you’re probably making in your social and digital marketing efforts (and how to fix them):

Social Media Marketing

Mistake #1: Wasting time creating content that doesn’t perform

Sitting down to create social content is no easy task. What do I post on social? What performs on social? What trends should I be jumping on? When and how much should I post? We could go on and on with the questions we hear over and over again from founders and markets just like you.

Instead of agonizing over all the little details – start with the basics: creating your messaging buckets.

Start with 3-4 messaging buckets (or social content categories, content pillars, whatever you’d like to call them!) that you can speak on to engage and attract followers. These can be anything from fun and relatable content to product highlights and education to community based content.

Underneath each “bucket” you’ll create a list of subtopics that can expand on your brand’s mission and products.

Example of a product highlight bucket’s subtopics: ingredient feature, highlight each sku, subscribe and save option, flavor descriptions, ASMR of product in use, etc.

Keep your content varied and test all of these messaging buckets and subtopics over the course of a few months to see what brings you the best results (engagement and new followers). Once you’ve tested various types of content for a few months you’re going to have a better idea of what topic, and what kind of content (Reels, carousel posts, static images, etc.), resonates most with your audience. Now keep doing more of that!

Social Advertising

Mistake #2: Using a SH*TTY ad creative strategy

Here’s a question we get all the time about how to make high-converting ad creatives: “Does it take a ton of $$$ to make?”…The answer’s NO! We’ll show you how you can stop spending money on low-quality ads that don’t convert!

Sure, you can test studio photoshoots and professionally produced videos as ads – but more often than not – we see UGC (user-generated content) & native-looking (meaning the ad creative looks more like an organic post) creative being our top performers time and time again.

Instead of using a sh*tty ad creative strategy, use our “anyone-can-do-it” 5-step formula for creating high-converting social ads now: 

1. Spy on your competition and take note of their creative and copy, and collect competitor’s customer data to create better ads for your audience
   1. Spy on competitor’s Facebook ads here
   2. Spy on top performing TikTok ads here
2. Start collecting all of your lo-fi videos to create a running library of video assets
   1. We’re talking ALL the videos: behind the scenes of production, short clips of your product in use, etc. The more video clips you have to work with, the better

1. Choose an “Ad Recipe” to easily plug in your short lo-fi videos for quick, painless ads. An “Ad Recipe” is simply a frame-by-frame formula that shows you hot to create an ad step-by-step. Here’s an example “Ad Recipe” you can use:
   1. Clip 1: Hook
   2. Clip 2: Intro
   3. Clip 3: How-to
   4. Clip 4: Benefits
   5. Clip 5: Objections
   6. Clip 6: Testimonial
   7. Clip 7: CTA

Looking for more “Ad Recipes” to easily “plug and play” your way to high-converting ads? We share our rolodex of top-performing “Ad Recipes” in our Consumer Goods Growth Course. Check it out here!

1. Launch your “Ad Recipe” and test micro-variables against it (things like CTA copy, headlines, text overlay colors, etc.)
2. Rinse and repeat – keep iterating to continue to get better and better results with your social advertising!

Email Marketing

Mistake #3: Sending all of your email broadcasts to everyone on your list, always

We totally get it. You worked your tail off to generate as many qualified leads as you could and you’d rather saw off your pinkie toe than not send emails to every last one of those potential customers…

But what if we told you that by practicing email segmentation with your broadcasts (also called newsletters, e-blasts, etc.) – you’ll increase your email deliverability, open rates, click through rates, AND sales?!

Here are our three essential audience segments: 

1. ENGAGED LIST = people who have opened/clicked on any of your emails in the last 3-6 months. 
   1. The time frame above will be different for everyone depending on how often you send emails
   2. You’re going to want to use this segment for most of your email sends as this list is engaged and ready to interact with your email marketing
2. UNENGAGED LIST = people who haven’t opened/clicked an email in the last 3-6 months. 
   1. To re-engage this list, use it for HEAVY PROMOS or click-worthy content!
      1. Since these folks haven’t engaged with you in a while, you want to give them a reason to click through
      2. Really focus on enticing subject lines to get someone to OPEN: use first name variables, be clear and include the % off, push urgency, etc.
3. EARLY BIRD/SNEAK PEEK = seed audiences for every big promotion or announcement. Ask your list to raise their hand and opt-in for early access or extra savings weeks before your promo goes live.
   1. Use this list to potentially triple+ future promo revenue
   2. By seeding your current subscribers and segmenting those who are SUPER excited to learn more – you’re priming your audience and preparing them to open up your announcement emails which will result in higher sales

That’s it for now, folks! We hope you found value in these three common mistakes that you may be making with your marketing and how to fix them ASAP.

If you’re looking to get even more free value on these three common mistakes, we’ve packaged it all up for you in video form with our Consumer Goods Masterclass! Check it out here! 

This is a guest post from our partner UMAI Marketing. UMAI Marketing is a boutique, Austin-based agency with a strong dedication to their clients’ and course members’ goals. The Japanese word “umai” means skillful, good, and delicious, or tasty, and it embodies their mission to create marketing that’s irresistibly inspiring and drives results. A few brands they’ve helped grow: Serenity Kids, Natural Stacks, Mother-In-Law’s Kimchi, IRVINS, rainbo, CANTEEN Spirits, Puffworks. Learn more here.