Have you been spending heavily on digital marketing, but it doesn’t seem to be yielding the desired results? The stats suggest that 73% (more than two-thirds) of small businesses lack confidence in their marketing efforts and believe that it’s not counting towards their business goals. This chilling discovery clearly shows that, as potent as digital marketing is, only a few are doing it right.
If you’re looking to become part of the minority that achieves results, you must understand the top digital marketing mistakes in Denver that others are making and how to avoid them. In this article, we’ll guide you through the top five pitfalls we’ve identified, ranking them from least critical to most severe with respect to your marketing success. We’ll take it further by showing you how to stand out and do digital marketing the right way.
Ready? Let’s get started.
Mistake #5: Inconsistent Branding & Poor Multi-Channel Integration
Many Denver businesses fail to deliver consistency in their brand identity across various channels. Others are failing to show up in the right places where their ideal customers are. Some may have a great Instagram page, but their website is disorganized.
Your potential customers are checking you out on several channels, and if they can’t find you or what they get is a perception of inconsistency and poor quality in tone and visuals, they’ll reflect that same idea on your products or services. This leads to loss of credibility, lower brand recognition, and customer disengagement. Ultimately, this means lower conversion rates and lost revenue.
Common missteps include:
- Poor understanding of the right marketing channels to reach ideal customers
- Inconsistent branding elements (tone and visuals) across marketing channels
- Lack of alignment between social media posts and website messaging
- Ignoring newer platforms and trends (short-form content, Reels, TikTok, etc.)
So how do you correct this mistake? Firstly, from interactions at local events to social media presence and your website, develop branding guidelines to create a cohesive look and feel. Map out your potential customers’ journey, from social media ads to landing pages, and ensure your touchpoints are aligned.
While it is true that customers require several touchpoints before making a purchase, it is essential to go beyond a basic multichannel strategy and adopt an omnichannel approach. A basic multichannel strategy is trying to be on as many platforms as possible, while an omnichannel approach emphasizes seamless integration across all your channels, ensuring they all work together in harmony.
Mistake #4: Neglecting Mobile Optimization and Website Performance
This is a foundational issue that can significantly impact your entire marketing efforts, as it acts as a leak in your conversion funnel. It’s relatively straightforward to diagnose and resolve, which is why we’ve ranked it #4.
Your website is your digital storefront, and it is expected to have great UI/UX, as well as load speed, to meet the expectations of Denver’s tech-savvy market. Common technical issues we see with many Denver businesses’ websites include slow load times, non-mobile-responsive designs, poor and confusing navigation, weak or missing calls to action, and technical SEO flaws that impact indexing on search engines and AI chatbots.
Many of these issues are behind high bounce rates, low SEO rankings, and low website conversions. So, what do you do about them?
- Ensure your website is mobile-friendly; this is non-negotiable.
- On the technical side, deploy tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Search Console to identify areas of improvement.
- Simplify site navigation and ensure CTAs are clear and visible.
- Conduct a user testing survey with local customers to gather their feedback on the usability of your website and identify areas for improvement.
A simple one-second delay in your website load time can lead to a significant drop in conversions and page views. These digital marketing mistakes on your website can significantly impact your website’s performance and ultimately affect your business’s ability to attract and convert new leads.
Mistake #3: Weak Local SEO & Neglecting ‘Near Me’ Visibility
This is a mistake that directly impacts your lead generation and customer acquisition from high-intent searches. It’s more fatal than the previous two we’ve outlined because a weak local SEO effectively renders your business invisible to your highest-potential customers.
Here are some common digital marketing mistakes in local SEO that we see many businesses make:
- Poorly optimized/unclaimed Google Business Profile
- Inconsistencies in business details (name, address, and phone number) across directories
- Poor keyword research/usage or using keywords that are not Denver-specific
- Poor handling of reviews and reputation management
Whether it’s someone downtown searching for “best tacos near me” or a homeowner in Lakewood looking for “Denver HVAC repair,” local intent is powerful; it’s one of the easiest ways to drive organic traffic to your business. Yet, 58% of businesses don’t optimize for local search, and only 30% have a local SEO plan in place.
How do you, as a smart business owner in Denver, cash in on this opportunity? Flip around all the mistakes highlighted above and start building your local Denver presence. Go further to create locally relevant content, such as blog posts about Denver neighborhoods, guides, or events, to establish local authority.
Mistake #2: Not Defining & Researching Local Target Audience Properly
This one is a bit tricky, and it’s a critical mistake we see affecting several digital marketing campaigns in Denver. While it’s great to have local SEO in place, you may still not get the desired results if you’re trying to speak to “everyone in Denver.”
Denver’s market is diverse, and failing to define a specific target audience effectively can result in your messaging getting lost in the noise. This mistake leads to a waste of ad spend and low engagement rates.
Trying to speak to everyone may cause you to overlook the significant bilingual and multicultural audience, such as Denver’s Spanish-speaking community, and ignore neighborhood-specific differences, including local preferences and lifestyle variations.
So, how do you fix this?
- Create detailed buyer personas for your ideal target audience, tailored to your product/service. This includes details such as age, specific location, lifestyle, motivation, and pain points.
- Conduct surveys and social media listening to identify the type of audience that resonates most with your content.
- Analyze website and ad data using tools like Google Analytics see the kind of people engaging with your content.
- Refine your content based on audience preferences and tailor your approach to be hyper-local.
Defining your local target audience properly can reduce acquisition costs by 50%, boost revenue by 5-25%, and increase the efficiency of your ad budget by 10-30%. This is the foundation of success in digital marketing in Denver.
Mistake #1: Lack of a Clear Goal & Not Using Data to Guide Strategy
This is the elephant in the room, and it’s often the root of all other mistakes. Many people fail to have a defined digital marketing goal in the first place. As such, their efforts are a series of disconnected tasks.
Maybe they run some social media ads today and write a random blog post tomorrow. This lack of a clear strategy renders it impossible to measure success and establish a robust marketing system.
Some do have a goal and a strategy at the beginning, but lack a structure to use data to analyze and refine what works. Many rely on vanity metrics that don’t show any real progress.
Seasonal changes in the Mile High City (like ski season tourists and summer festivals) could lead to unusual spikes. You only get such insights using proper analytics and performance tracking. Without these, you’re marketing in the dark, and this is the perfect condition for failed campaigns.
How do you save yourself from this critical mistake?
- Set clear SMART goals from the beginning (“get 100 new leads within 9 months”).
- Run A/B tests for ads, emails, and landing pages.
- Install analytics (Google Analytics, UTM tags, conversion pixels) to track the performance of campaigns.
- Track key metrics like Cost per lead, return on ad spend, conversion rates, and return on investment.
- Review regularly and adjust strategies based on hard data not on gut feelings.
All these ensure you’re putting your energy in the right places, maximizing your budget, and getting the desired results.
Escaping Digital Marketing Mistakes in Denver
It’s clear that if you’re not doing digital marketing in Denver correctly, you could be fruitlessly burning through your precious budget. We’ve highlighted several digital marketing mistakes in Denver. From inconsistent branding to website issues, local SEO problems, audience persona development, and poor tracking. Most of these are the result of inexperience in digital marketing and local expertise.
You can save yourself the hassle of trying to avoid these pitfalls by hiring a Denver digital marketing agency with years of expertise and experience in the local Denver market. That’s what you get with an agency like Firestarter Digital. Let us set your business on the path of reliable and consistent growth today. Schedule a free audit to get started!