The Unfair Reality of Digital Marketing
J Haselwood
Ampla’s Digital Marketing Strategy Blueprint series is perfect for small and medium sized businesses, nonprofits, and digital marketers seeking a fresh perspective on digital strategy. This is part 4 of 7.
Up to this point, we’ve provided an overview of digital strategy, shared a checklist for conducting a digital audit, and introduced some great digital marketing brainstormingquestions. This installment of the Digital Marketing Strategy Blueprint series will take us further into the overall strategic process and discuss the unfair realities of a creating a perfect digital marketing plan versus what really gets implemented from that plan.
The Marketing Montage vs. Reality
If only a marketer’s life was like a 90 minute motion picture. A bunch of people would be sitting around a well-lit conference room table brainstorming, then someone would say, “I’ve go it!” Next, a montage would take place with some catchy music to get your heart rate pumping. It would show different frames of people working, smiling, struggling, smiling, late nights at the office, sighs, people drinking coffee, smiling, sleeves rolled up, things getting done, and people smiling again. At the end of the montage, the new marketing campaign launches late at night, and everyone toasts some bubbly in the office to this success.
This is not reality though. In the real world of unfairness, it’s most likely that your team comes up with a completely innovative idea, solution, or concept, only to find roadblocks every which way you turn. Not enough budget. Limited technology. Lack of time. Lack of support from leadership. Office politics. Lack of talent to implement successfully. Projects improperly scoped. Expect the trials my friends, for they will come.
Digital Roadblock Considerations
Whether you’re working to implement new or proven ideas with your marketing, there are certain items that will govern what gets done. Some of the considerations are:
Business Goals: Do these new or current ideas/tactics support business goals? If not, then remove them from consideration.
Cost: Do you have or will you be able to obtain the budget you need to implement your strategy? Costs may consist of investing in people, technology, vendors, training, or advertising/media.
Talent: Do you have the talent internally to pull off your strategic ideas? If not, can you acquire it through hiring or contracting the talent?
Prioritizing: Since limitations exist on money and resources, how will you prioritize marketing channels and how much money you put into each? For example, do you put money into Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Display Ads, all three, or something else? Also, how much ad spend will you budget for each of these channels? How will you prioritize AdWords versus Facebook Ads? Will you do A/B testing by channel to determine budget fluctuation between channels?
Audience:Taking new ideas into account, are the marketing channels and messaging appropriate for your audience? By understanding your audience’s behaviors and interests, your messaging can begin to appear at the right places and times with messaging that resonates. For example, an SMS campaign may be great for some companies, yet be a complete waste of money for others. Consider your audience.
So What Do You Do?
As with many things in life, you must be prepared for the worst, but expect the best with your digital marketing. This means you seek to be smarter, more creative, more innovative, and more effective with your marketing efforts. Continue to brainstorm and develop innovative concepts and solutions. Also, understand the realities and cumbersome work it may take for your idea to see the light of day.
If you approach your strategy with the understanding that ideas may be met with adversity, you’ll be better able to plan for contingencies. This means having many of the questions answered up front that may come from internal and external stakeholders. Arm yourself with data, rationale, case studies, passion, and any other tools to support your recommendations.
Some of the best ideas will never be revealed to the public. That’s the unfair reality of digital marketing. Yet, success is a rented position without innovation. Continue to create ideas and implement what makes sense.
At this point, you’ve decided what you want to do. The next step is determining how to do it. Our next blog, “Digital Marketing: How to Plan Your Next Campaign,” will outline ways to organize and structure functions that comprise the planning process of a digital marketing campaign.
What are some of the stumbling blocks you’ve ran into and how did you overcome them? Comment below!
In case you missed the other blogs in this series, here’s a link to each of them:
Part 1: Framework: Digital Strategy vs. Digital Tactics