With 86% of Canadians planning to research holiday gifts online this year – and just over half prepared to buy according to a recent poll conducted by AskingCanadians.com – Toronto-based digital marketing solutions provider Delvinia has identified six common missteps made by digital marketers. It’s coining them ‘digital diseases’ and advising customers to avoid them like the plague when they’re browsing the growing e-tail space.
• Widget-itis – the compulsion to include the latest and greatest widgets on a website whether needed or not.
• Obsessive Content Disorder or OCD – an irrational fear of removing old content from a website.
• Data-pox – cluttered web pages that make the site difficult to navigate. Causes a healthy customer’s immune system to be overwhelmed by intruding tools, data and options that often make the site’s core purpose convoluted, difficult and frustrating.
• Ad-theria – caused when marketers feel strongly about advertising other products and services (their own or other advertisers’) at the expense of the customer’s experience. Survey identifies Ad-theria as the biggest threat to e-tailers this holiday season.
• Mono-typosis – lack of relevant product information and customer reviews. Apparent when a customer experience prohibits contact, connection or conversation with a brand or company.
• Navigation Deficiency Virus (NDS) – forms when a site offers little ability to navigate because there’s too much content.
‘Companies that dive into marketing online without this understanding risk damaging their reputations, brands and relationships by providing poor digital customer experiences,’ says Adam Froman, president and CEO of Delvinia. ‘For the first time ever, customers’ expectations of technology have outpaced the technology itself, so companies that want to win their loyalty and business need to keep them engaged by understanding them and delivering great experiences.’
