Gone Digital: Tips and Tricks to Mastering Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is young, it’s still a misunderstood teenager, and because of that, we are continuously trying to figure it out. How do marketers reach the widest audience on a digital platform? How do marketers ensure their message is well communicated and not drowned out by other noise? And how do marketers ensure quality on a digital platform?
Most marketers are battling the digital marketing beast, learning from mistakes and improving plans and campaigns for the future. Here are seven things that a digital marketer at My Loud Speaker wants to share with other digital marketers.
Contents
3 Points to Digital Marketing Strategy
There are three things that should be a priority when it comes to digital marketing: execution, quality/agility and customizable content. All of these are important to a strong digital marketing campaign.
Even the best planners cannot help a campaign if the execution falls flat. Planning is still fundamental to a digital campaign, as it would be to a traditional one. However, with digital marketing, there must be some flexibility factored into the master plan to allow for alterations in the execution. It’s hard to predict how things will launch online and how quickly it will gain traction, if it does at all. Therefore, a strong execution is ‘everythang’.
Being immersed in digital comes has made overarching impacts over the past decade, including a newfound ability and expectation to get responses and see results instantaneously. However, the need to respond in current time can challenge the quality of a digital campaign. Agility, especially with online campaigns, is just as important to quality. A well-written blog post about new software is all well and good, but it won’t matter if another article, even of lesser quality, beat you. That blog will gain the traction and the followers, while yours will fall into the depths of the Internet. While quality should always be sought after, sometime it will have to be sacrificed in favour of agility.
Another important factor to remember with digital marketing is the power of customizable content – content targeting specific audiences. The Internet is a marketing medium that is saturated with advertising content. Therefore people are only going to notice content that they are attracted to. Because of this, customizable content is more valuable than absolute content.
The Common Mistakes
Digital marketers are not impervious to mistakes. Like most new things, it is best learned by trial and error. Nobody rides a bike beautifully the first time, and no one expects you to. So, here are some common mistakes to be aware of when it comes to digital marketing.
QUICK TO TRUST
Be careful about putting too much trust into online posts. The Internet is a great resource of information, but it is an even deeper resource of misinformation. Anyone can publish practically anything they want, without fact checking, citing sources or even proper grammar. Because there is so much information readily available about digital marketing strategies, people trust the information before trying it out for themselves. Try out the information before implementing it into a digital marketing plan and closely monitor what changes are made to see if they make an impact, whether positive or negative.
COST TUNNEL VISION
Another mistake is to focus too much on cost rather than the potential impact of a campaign. People like to save at the bottom line, and cost cutting measures are used in facets of every business, including their digital marketing. Just like any other aspect of a business, digital marketing goes through a growth spurt, a time that requires a lot of investment for little immediate pay off. This should not deter digital marketers, even if it does cost more. With the right resources and investments, they will be surprised at the eventual girth of their campaign.
DIGITAL RELIANCE
Lastly, a common mistake is to put too much stock into digital marketing. While it is a powerful new tool, it shouldn’t completely take precedent over traditional tools and methods. Some marketers discovered digital marketing and thought that all the other traditional ways of marketing were outdated. They abandoned the old school methods and traditional playbooks for the shiny new digital era – but that’s premature. A good digital marketing campaign doesn’t completely take over all marketing for a firm, but it complements the other marketing methods they use.
It’s About Time
Digital marketing is the new game in the toy box, making it exciting and fun to play with. However, as with any game, it takes times to learn the rules and to play the game to it’s full potential. Digital marketing is no different. It takes time to master the tools, to know what works best and when, and to realize the potential for the new marketing methods. So go slow, be patient and most of all, have fun. There are new ways to market, and that is the exciting part.
Header Photo: Nick Karvounis (via Unsplash.com)
If you want to learn more about specific key elements of an effective marketing plan, read our 50+ page booklet on How to Write A Strategic Marketing Plan That Yields ROI – complete with explanations
