Online marketing is bursting into the scene in Bangladesh. Many brands are slowly shifting their budgets to online, mainly through social media channels and predominantly, to Facebook. But we are missing some key points which can make these marketing efforts much more effective. Monoshita Ayruani and I have listed down some key mistakes Bangladeshi brands are making online:

9 key mistakes Bangladeshi brands are making online

1. Defined Strategy

Not defining clear goals, expectations and budgets is a recipe for disaster. Many brands are not incorporating a digital strategy into their marketing plan. They are still treating online as just an extension of offline marketing, thus not putting sufficient thought into digital.

2. Engaging With Users

Many brands are exclusively focusing on acquiring‚ followers through ads, often forgetting to listen to their users and trigger conversations. The power of social media allows brands to be responsive and interactive, warm and friendly, vocal, and accommodating; not leveraging such features of social media is a shame.

3. Focus on User Experience

Many brands are using social media as just another platform to push their ads through one-way communications - this defeats the purpose of going "social". Moreover, ads are often directed towards the wrong audience and disregard user experience in design and copy.

4. Visibility on Search Engines

Exclusively Facebook-focused marketing makes it difficult for search engines to index and rank local content. Moreover, at WebAble, we feel brands should start with a website, optimize their contents in search engines, set-up search marketing, and then go for social ads to drive traffic back to the site.

5. Content Optimization

Brands are not getting the best out of their content due to a lack of effective copywriting, optimization, and distribution. The practice of content marketing is quite non-existent as brands are mostly focused on ads. However, creating great content that adds value to the target audience is priceless.

6. Funnels & Data

Very few companies are directing their online traffic through a systematic flow to capture and use data for follow-ups. Companies can use all social channels to drive traffic to their website, land them on desired pages, present offers, get users to sign up with e-mail addresses or phone numbers, build lists and follow up through tools like email marketing and retargeting.

7. Measuring the Impact on Bottom Line

ROI of digital marketing is rarely measured (mainly because KPIs are not set initially) and compared to offline media, thus limiting objective assessment of the impact on a brand's bottom-line. There are lots of free analytics tools available to us, Facebook Page Insights, and Google Analytics being the two most obvious ones.

8. Losing Customers in the Clutter

Many brands can’t break through the clutter due to mediocre content and ‘pushy’ ads. By “mediocre” we mean not well thought out, third-party content with copyright issues, wrong sizes, etc. The best approach is to create original content for blogs and promote them through social channels or just create original, branded content for social media.

9. Rapidly Changing Dynamics of Platforms

While it is evolving every day, digital space is still in its infancy. Many brands are struggling to keep up with the rapidly changing dynamics of digital platforms. While it is actually very hard to keep up, brands may consider hiring digital agencies to be on the cutting edge and ahead of the competition. Want to reinvent your brand? See our work.