5 Digital Marketing Hard Truths You Don’t Want to Hear
We hope you’re sitting down, because we have
something important to tell about digital marketing that will be hard for you
to hear.
Actually, we have five important things to
say, and they’re all going to be bitter pills to swallow.
But facing these digital marketing hard truths
is the only way to stay afloat and efficient when it comes to achieving your
online marketing goals in the years ahead. Listening to them will make you a
better person and a better marketer
So you may as well get it over with. Here are
the five most important digital marketing truths you have to come to grips with
in 2018 and beyond…
1\. You Absolutely Need an Ad Budget to Get Any Traction on Social
Nearly 100% of businesses have strong reasons
to be on social. Without a social presence, they miss out on online reach and
lead gen capabilities. Their current and potential customers will also think less of a company
that doesn’t have an
adequate social presence.
Yet, these businesses are at the mercy of
constantly changing social platforms. Companies like Twitter and Facebook and
LinkedIn make major changes to improve the experience for the average user and
help the company stock go up.
Notice how business users and advertisers are
left out of the equation.
What we’re getting at is this: organic reach is tanking.
You have little chance of your posts showing
up on people’s newsfeeds unless you apply some sort of budget to promote your
posts. Businesses actively trying to boost conversions may also want to
consider paying for banner ad space.
The good news is that even with a small budget
you can get great results. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and other platforms
all have great tools for helping you experiment with audience targeting and
other parameters to chase better-optimized performance.
Start using these tools now, or else you won’t
get anything out of your social channels. Even a small budget of $75 – $100 a
month is enough to learn the ropes and start earning positive results.
2\. Vanity Metrics Won’t Get You Anywhere
When doing anything online, you should tie
your campaigns to target metrics that directly generate a dollar value — or
that at least have a high chance of leading to extra money in the bank.
Yet, too often businesses prioritize vanity
metrics. A “vanity metric” can be anything that is easy to measure and that can
make you feel good but that ultimately has no connection to higher earnings.
Take this example from Social Media Today. They
posted a hilarious meme five years ago that still gets thousands of shares and
likes. Periodically, the meme will pick up steam and go viral in connection
with current trending news.
But ultimately the post equals bupkis when it
comes to actual marketing performance.
People who engage with or share the post are _not_
likely to visit Social Media Today’s
website since the post has no link to speak of. They are also _not_
becoming more aware of the company’s
offerings.
So, instead of just focusing on the amount of
likes and followers you have, think fourth dimensionally. Identify metrics that
lead to actual revenue, like demo signups or quote requests.
If you have a part of your marketing funnel
that is lagging, then you can also prioritize things like email signups,
landing page visits, and shares for your big online promotions.
The bottom line is to think about your bottom
line with everything you do.
3\. Keeping Up With Digital Marketing Hard Truths Through News, Data and Research is Essential
What worked with digital marketing five years
ago may not work today.
Businesses used to get away with poorly
written content as long as it had strong keyword signals, but that’s no longer
the case. Now, high quality content that leads to low bounce rates is more
important for ranking. You don’t even [need\\
the related keyword in the body of your page](https://www.semrush.com/ranking-factors/)
if your content is
strong enough.
A mobile friendly website was once a
nice-to-have, but now it’s essential.
Developments like these don’t come out of thin
air. Companies like Google and Facebook will announce most changes well before
they take effect.
Other developments, like what factors
influence search engine ranking, must be learned through diligent research.
If you don’t keep your ear to the ground and
actively search out this information, you will be basing your digital marketing
strategy on myth and conjecture. Prioritize staying educated to stay ahead.
4\. Bad Reviews Will Tank Your Reputation Unless You Actively Ask for Good Ones
50% of people check online reviews “most of
the time” or “always,” but 55% of people
say that they “rarely” or
“never” leave a review.
This statistic shows that people put a lot of
weight on the content of online reviews but usually don’t feel inclined to
leave one themselves.
Businesses must therefore actively court
reviews from all of their customers. Otherwise, they risk having their review
score skewed in favor of people who tend to leave the most reviews:
complainers.
Put another way, you have to keep actively
adding to your volume of reviews. Most people who have a pleasant or positive
experience will be likely to keep it to themselves unless you directly ask
them. Remind them that their opinion is important to you and to others online,
and you will see your score remain stable.
5\. You Have to Be Constantly Gathering Data and Learning From It to Keep Up
Our last home truth is hard to hear because it
involves lots of work. Simply put: digital marketing is an ongoing, fairly
labor intensive process.
Most small business owners prefer not to work
this way. They want to establish baseline practices and stick to them.
This approach may result in happy customers
when it comes to your actual operations, but it will never lead to growth
through online marketing.
Instead, business owners must actively measure
their digital marketing performance and learn from it. They have to establish
benchmark metrics, set goals to improve them, experiment, and then measure the
results. Then, they have to keep tweaking their approach until they can
reliably grow their KPIs (key performance indicators).
Most galling of all, achieving consistent
success is not an invitation to rest upon your laurels. Instead, you have to be
prepared for ongoing changes and shifts that naturally occur.
Digital marketing is not a factory. You can’t
just put in the same inputs and expect the outputs to remain consistent.
Instead, digital marketing is a sportscar
engaged in a constant race with conditions that change all the time. It
requires frequent tuning, measuring, testing and maintenance. It also requires
you to change up your practices as the weather changes or the track itself is
reshaped. Sometimes you have to swap out your entire engine just to stay in the
race.
Yes, the act of continually taking your
digital marketing campaigns’ temperature and making adjustments can be
exhausting. But it’s the only way to stay ahead in a modern era where past
performance is no guarantee of future success.
You have to make your own way while keeping
your eye on competitors in the rearview mirror. And if you can stay focused on
learning and improving, you will always come out ahead.
Contents Written For Digital Harvest Marketing.