Digital Marketing strategy isnât easy to implement, but itâs not hard either. The mechanics of online marketing remain more or less the same. There are only so many channels youâll work with and it doesnât get fancy anywhere.
The only variables are aspects that youâll change depending on your business and your brand.
Also, how you want your brand to be portrayed determines how your offers are positioned, which also means that youâd then worry about the purpose for which you create content, the style of communication you choose, the blog posts, the copy on your web pages, the forms, your email marketing messages, and everything else.
But I see variations in what clients expect. I see how things begin to shape up depending on what the clients need.
You see, if you are reading this, I can bet that you need results. You want your digital marketing to work. After all that effort you take for marketing, something better happens for your business. Right?
Itâd, but then, you donât let that ever happen.
You seem to have your own skewed, twisted, preconceived, and half-educated knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work.
âI want SEO done. Will it be delivered tomorrow?â
âI want a beautiful website. It should look goodâ
âLooking for someone to help me with Facebook Advertisingâ
âRetargeting wonât work for my niche productsâ
âEmail marketing is dead. Will you help manage my social media?â
I can put in 18-hour work days, Monday to Monday, and still never get tired. But a single statement like that and I am huffing, puffing, panting, and desperate to go do something else like weaving baskets or rolling cotton balls.
Here’s a video if you watch to get an overview of how you should plan your digital strategy.
Digital marketing strategy is what it is but you screw up almost every time. Hereâs why:
Because âDigital Marketing Strategyâ sounds Like a Cool thing to say…
That word sounds so intellectual, geeky, and nerdy, doesnât it? I am willing to bet more than 70% of all businesses in the world are sitting in a conference room wasting time with a morale-draining, complete unproductive meeting right now, at the time of writing this.
We are so drawn to fancy words and good-for-nothing meetings, arenât we? You make it sound so big, this digital marketing strategy thing.
Instead of dwelling on a worthless âstrategyâ meeting, you could have written an entire weekâs worth of blog posts.
Another strategy call could allow you to post social updates into the future using something like Hootsuite.
You spend too much time talking, and talking is cheap.
You worry so much about results that you donât take the most important steps. Instead, you waste your time sweating the small stuff.
You spend half a week looking for Facebook advertising secrets instead of actually launching a campaign and learning from the data you gather.
You look for a developer to build landing pages when you have tools to help you build them.
You buy all fancy tools, courses, and eBooks but you donât follow through what you learn.
Comfort is where the crowd is
If itâs popular, it must be good. Right?
Wrong.
For us humans, we take comfort in âcommonâ, the normal, that which everyone does.
Everyone talks about SEO. Freelance marketplaces have vendors yelling out loud: âI will do SEO. I Will do SEOâ.
Your idiot friend happened to share a drink with you and told you how he gets 124,000 visits a month just by publishing blog posts outsourced to a cheap freelancer and only publishes 4 times a month.
You think thatâs the way to do it.
Some moron tells you that Social media is where it all is. You spend the next several weeks just trying to figure out how to make Twitter work for you.
Then another idiot like me would insist that youâd have to do email marketing and stop sweating over the small stuff.
You can see that youâd drift, coast along, and do nothing in the end.
Digital marketing is like a V12 Engine â all cylinders must fire. You canât keep cranking a single cylinder (like social or SEO only) and hope that the world will come knocking on your door.
You have zero respect for the actual work
You want results. You look for vendors, freelancers, staff, and agencies.
For all the entrepreneurial hero that you already are, the Internet makes it easy for you to disrespect.
You can say anything you want. You can do anything you want. You can Tweet back at President Trump. You can leave a bad review for anyone.
This gives you a false sense of superiority. Plus, the Internet actually started making everyone believe that we live in an âInstant anythingâ world.
âInstant coffeeâ
âInstant online deliveryâ
âInstant accessâ
âInstant hotel bookingsâ
âInstant cabsâ
Unfortunately, results from digital marketing are anything but âinstantâ. Itâs a thankless, lonely, back-breaking, and soul-sucking job.
Either you do it or have someone else do it. When they do, donât ramp up your expectations by expecting results yes âday.
Thatâs unfair.
See how much commitment digital marketing really needs. No one got successful on day one.
When you know this, why do you expect others to wave a magic wand and expect magic on day one?
Good freelancers and agencies do the campaigns the right way â theyâd research, create ads, setup landing pages, do A/B testing, and run the campaigns the right way.
You could do it too. Itâs just that it takes time and a certain degree of expertise. So, youâd choose not to.
Just because you choose not to doesnât mean that people you hire have to get results instantly since itâd take them time to show you results as itâd take you time.
Your opinions are expensive & loss-making
A lot of business owners have strong opinions. Thatâs actually a part of what makes up for the entrepreneurial DNA. They visualize, believe, and commit. They take risks and they invest money. They have more to do in a day that 10 other normal folks do.
Thatâs also where thereâs an issue.
You, as an entrepreneur, are supposed to have opinions but youâd normally depend on people much smarter than you to take decisions that help your business grow.
Instead, your fat ego and stupid opinions mar your digital marketing efforts:
âI want only 350-word blog postsâ
Why? Why can’t they be longer?
âPlease donât link to any other blog postsâ
Why shouldnât I link to others?
âI want this image to be exactly 600px wide and 400px tallâ
Exactly how many millions did you lose because of this?
âChange the color of the button to greenâ
Whatâs the proof that green works better, given that you don’t do any sort of AB testing?
âI donât care about A/B testingâ
Because you are sitting on billion dollars in cash to spend?
You can ask for explanations. You can be a curious cat and ask questions. You can jump right into an argument. You can even question moves your staff or contractors make.
But if they are smart, you let them take the risks for you. If they are good at what they do, let them do their job.
Consultants, agencies, freelancers, and even members of your staff have spent doing digital marketing for ages (like when you were still working on that job or when you were in college).
Donât bring your big fat entrepreneurial ego when you hire consultants and question their goodwill, expertise, or skills â especially when they didnât even get started yet.
Digital marketing strategy and all that jazz are all fine. But you wonât get a lead (and hence make a sale) if you continue to do what you do.
Great leaders and successful entrepreneurs depend on other smart people to do the work. They donât nose around, bully, or disrespect.
If you still choose to walk your ass around the aisles of the Internet thinking that you are somehow privileged just because you choose to hire someone for $6.25 an hour, I know exactly where youâll go and how youâll end up.
I donât want to see you there, so donât go there.
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