updated 10/18/2017

I love Halloween. And while I am getting into the spirit for this fun-filled holiday, let's talk about what scares us at ApogeeINVENT:  Ugly websites, spammy email campaigns, and bad content are just a few things that come to mind. 

Scaring your friends with creepy costumes and tricks is great. Scaring your customers is not so great. The following are some of the most common scary mistakes businesses make in the their Digital Marketing. Here is how you can avoid these scary mistakes, both on Halloween and after.

Customers expect businesses to be available and quick to respond on blogs and through social media.  One of the worst mistakes you can make as a company is to play dead when a customer interacts with you on the Internet. 

78% of people who complain to a brand via Twitter expect a response within an hour. (Source: Lithium)  That is up from only 25% in 2013. That is a huge jump in expecting customer service through social media. 

Are you monitoring your brand on social sites? Not just responding to comments on your page, but actually searching for mentions of your business? 96% of the people that discuss brands online do not follow those brands’ owned profiles (Source: Brandwatch), so it is up to you to find out what is being said and respond accordingly. Don't scare your customers away with dead silence, but treat them to helpful, fast feedback.

Do you haunt your customers through numerous mediums and numerous times a day? Don't scare customers away by being a nuisance. Too many daily social media updates or emails can be your customer's worst nightmare.  The more posts per day, the less engagement -- when a brand posts twice a day, those posts only receive 57% of the likes and 78% of the comments per post. (Source:Track Social ) 

Be mindful of your publishing frequency on Facebook, and start testing with your own page to see what frequency is right for your community. Send only solicited, useful, and well-timed content to your subscribers and fans to keep them around. Make it easy for people to unsubscribe. If they aren't happy to receive your content, you probably don't want them on your mailing list anyway. AND, you certainly don't want people reporting your emails and hurting your deliverability.

If you use email marketing (and you should!), avoid email subjects that will look like spam.  61% of emails received at professional email accounts are non-essential. (Source: Mimecast ) Inboxes are overflowing with marketing email, and email clients are getting more and more strict about cracking down on spam.

Here are a few subject lines to avoid if you want to stay out of spam filters and improve your email deliverability rates: 

How to make sure your emails are making it into inboxes, and not getting marked as spam once they are there?

Use personalization, proper timing, and offers valuable to the recipient to break through the clutter and be seen. Make unsubscribing easy, and send only the kind of content you've promised.

Are you handing out dental floss when they are looking for candy? There is nothing worse than getting information you don't need or want from a source you thought was going to give you something useful. 

If you promise industry tips, don't send out product information. Don't trick your audience when they are looking for a treat. Email the content that was promised, and post useful information that is related to your industry for your fans. Otherwise, they might skip over your business in the future and look elsewhere for the treat they expect.

Is your website a maze that your visitors must navigate to find what they want? While a corn maze might be exciting, nobody wants to spend an hour looking for information on the web. Make sure your website is well-designed so users can quickly find the information they are looking for. 

It is important to give visitors clear and obvious directions on where they should go. Want a free trial - click here. Want to contact us? Fill out this form. Make your navigation bar visible, simple, and include the main pages of your site. 

Distracting but necessary items, like privacy policies and terms, are best left to the bottom navigation (footer) of your site. Use anchor text to send users to the correct part of a page so they don't have to scroll. Consider using dedicated landing pages for important offers so users are focused on a single call-to-action.

Finding the item or information they were searching for in the first place is a priority, and if they can't immediately see how to get to the information they want, a user is likely to leave the site and look elsewhere. 

From Dracula turning into a bat, to the man who becomes werewolf, shape changing can be frightening. Your customers will think so, too. 

Are you sending mixed messages through your marketing? Do you misrepresent yourself on your website, through social media, or through your blog? Nothing will send your customers running more quickly than perceived lies or misinformation. 

Be honest, be transparent, and let your customers get to know you. 

Even content practices that use techniques like click-baiting will hurt you. Not only will it affect your advertising, you will be risking your reputation. Getting customers through honest information and valuable content will not just attract them, it will keep them coming back and build a good online reputation. 

When I first wrote this article in 2013, the insanity I was referring to was businesses neglecting to use the Internet as part of their marketing efforts. In 2017, most businesses understand the value of the Internet, even if they do underutilize it.

In 2017, I want to talk about mobile. 85% of mobile advertisers think they’re providing a positive experience; only 47% of users agree. (Unlockd) The majority of brands are still failing their mobile users. Worse still, most of them don’t even realize they’re doing it but you can guarantee their visitors do. Bloated sites, sloppy code, and aggressive advertising are just a few of the bad habits many sites are still guilty of – and we should all know better by now.

More people are browsing, researching, and buying on mobile devices than on desktops. A poorly designed mobile site will cost you customers. And that would be just criminal.

Get a well-designed replicated website that is perfect for mobile users. Already have a website? Test it using Google's Mobile-Friendly test. And don't forget to design mobile-friendly emails.

A beautiful website can be a thing of art. But too many websites are poorly designed and will make visitors cringe. Not only that, but load times are much higher than the recommended 2 seconds, which will cost you customers. Particularly mobile customers.

Your website is your calling card on the web, so don't leave visitors with a bad impression. Try these ways to influence emotion with your design to increase sales, and keep visitors coming back. If you don't feel comfortable building your own website, get the professionals (like us!) to do it for you.

We hope you have a Halloween filled with treats.

Have you seen other scary internet marketing mistakes?  Share them in the comments below!