Despite our best efforts this year, we have all been guilty of some bad digital marketing habits. It’s time to ditch them for good and make some resolutions you can stick to in 2015. Successful marketers adapt to changes, optimize for results and are willing to abandon strategies and tactics that simply do not work.

Here’s a list of tips to help solve some of the top problems most marketers faced this year.

1. Keeping the Same Outdated Goals

Long-range planning doesn’t always work. Often, goals and strategy plans need to be adjusted as data is gathered to ensure you are still operating effectively. Plan your long-term goals, but schedule monthly or quarterly reviews to track and adjust tactics as needed.

Keep a close eye on your analytics, paid campaigns and audience engagement to identify new opportunities. By actively optimizing your digital marketing, you can achieve incremental gains throughout the year.

Related Article: The Real Marketers Shift from Social Media to Content Marketing

2. Operating in Silos

Often times, marketers get caught up in the daily grind of content and social community management, and lose sight of the strategy that ties them together. Similarly, keeping your digital and traditional efforts separate will create disconnect for your brand that may discourage user engagement.

Instead, develop cohesive plans that tie tactics together to help build relationships and move users through the customer lifecycle. Content in each marketing channel should have a distinct voice that offers something unique to that channel, but also stays consistent with your brand, working with other tactics to compliment the overall.

3. Reliance on Automation

Marketing automation is the fastest growing CRM-related sector in the last five years. While marketing tools can be a big help in streamlining your process each day, too much automation can damage the relationships you’ve worked to build. By relying too heavily on automation, you can inadvertently lose sight of your goals, user engagement, and opportunities within your industry.

This year, explore different ways to stay active and keep your users engaged with valuable content and frequent communication.

4. Thinking Desktop First

As of 2014, mobile has become the primary device used for accessing the Internet. Subsequently, desktop should no longer be your first thought when developing content.

Leverage responsive design to avoid creating more work when developing and maintaining your website. Keep content digestible and optimized for all devices to ensure your readers can interact with your brand however they choose.

Related Article: Mobile Marketing Analytics: Which Metrics Measure Success?

5. Producing Stale Content

Keeping up with the demands of content releases can be difficult in your day-to-day routine. Often, unique content production can get pushed to the bottom of your to-do list, resulting in a bland brand presence that doesn’t offer anything interesting to your audience.

This year, create content that cuts through the noise by focusing on niche opportunities and audience interests. Stay focused and organized with content calendars by keeping a close eye on industry trends.

6. Chasing Quantity, Not Quality

Big numbers are great, but what matters is the bottom line. If you’re campaigns don’t pull in high conversions while remaining cost effective, you may need to hone your targeting to narrow your focus.

Remember, your greatest return on investment will be targeting users most likely to engage with your brand, so focus on the needs, interests, and behaviors of your niche segments.

7. Ignoring Metrics

Metrics tell the story of your digital marketing performance, so listen up. While planning the strategic direction of your brand, monthly reviews of your data can help uncover issues and opportunities to maximize budget and increase results for key performance indicators.

Share and discuss with your team what you find when exploring analytics, campaign data, and user engagement to continuously adjust your plan of attack.

Conclusion

Analyze your brands strengths and weaknesses to uncover the unique obstacles and opportunities you face. Strategize for the long term, but plan to adjust your tactics throughout the year to avoid building more bad habits.

By understanding your shortcomings and developing a plan that is flexible and actionable, your brand can kick off the New Year right and surpass the competition.