An Unrealistic Time Frame
Ever had one of those clients who want to rank on the first page in a month? Or want 6 million visitors in 6 months? That’s like asking a constructor to build Burj Khalifa in a month! Improving your ranking on Google or driving traffic to your website is a gradual process. Much like dating, you have to build trust with the search engines and your target audience. In my experience, significant boosts in traffic or ranking will be seen 3 months after an effective digital plan has been implemented. By the 6th month, the digital marketer would have studied the behavior of visitors and optimized your website to achieve its goal. With such data in hand, the marketer can now predict how long it will take to attract 6 million visitors. Ranking on the first page of Google is another ball game all together. Story for another day.Inadequate Budget
They say digital marketing is the cheapest form of marketing. But I also know the main reason why most digital marketing strategies are not successful is because they are not funded or well executed. Imagine a case where the project manager tells the digital marketer that he will only release funds for Facebook ads but not a graphic designer to design the landing page. Like going to fetch water with a gurney bag, the target market will see the ad on Facebook, react to the CTA and land on the contact page, instead of a pop-up form that further explains the value of the product being pushed and how to buy. Long story short, if you want significant returns on your digital marketing spend, don’t be cheap.A Sales Team that Doesn’t Mine Data
Data is the lifeblood of digital marketing. Using data, you are able to manipulate traffic and dictate actions. Then here comes a team, that is constantly in direct contact with your target market but doesn’t bother to gather data. That just grinds my gears. Dear sales people, we really need you to analyse our prospects so we can use the data to craft the deadliest ads and campaigns. Okay?Failure
This is the worst feeling for a digital marketer. When you know exactly what should be done, and how it should be done but you don’t get adequate funding or data to implement your plan to the T. So if you are reading this and you happen to have a digital marketer on board, please make arrangements to ensure all the above points are taken care of if you want a successful digital campaign. Otherwise you are sitting on a time bomb.
I could go on and on but I would just be getting personal. So let me end this here by reminding you that digital marketing is just marketing. Its not fancy or shiny, its very necessary. In fact, if you haven’t trained your current marketing and sales team about digital marketing strategies I suggest we have a talk: Mercy@legibra.co.ke.