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29/09/22

Common Myths About Digital Marketing

Written by Amelia Crisp

Not to be biased, but we think that being a digital marketer is the best job in the world. We have the tools and skills to reach global audiences immediately, generating sales and leads by placing our clients in front of customers who are looking specifically for what our clients offer, building up a wealth of data to inform future marketing strategies.

We can use multiple channels and strategies to get your brand in front of the right audience at the right time to drive conversions

 

See an ad on Facebook for that gorgeous dress you were looking at earlier?

That’s us!

Looking for a luxury holiday in the Middle East but unsure which hotel?

Our ad will help you choose!

Looking for the perfect present for Christmas for your loved one?

Our ad is right in front of you!

 

Digital marketing comes hand in hand with analytics. Data allows us to ensure we get the most impressions, sales and leads for the best price. As such, there are some myths floating around that we just NEED to address.

 

#1 – “Content marketing just isn’t that important”

 

“ 70% of users click the first 3 ads”

 

Our little friend SEO is one of the most important strategies in digital marketing. It’s a long-term strategy that aims to get your organic ads as high as possible on the SERP so that more users click on our listing, rather than having to use PPC marketing to get in those top positions. Some of those higher costing keywords are too much for some businesses, which is why SEO is super important for driving free traffic to the site.

Content marketing builds relationships and trust with customers, whether it be for a regular listing for a page, a blog, or FAQs for a subject that the user is looking for. The below considerations are only a small part of what goes into a cohesive content marketing strategy – still think it’s not important?

  • Audience retention
  • Higher SERP ranking
  • Raising brand awareness
  • Creates loyal brand advocates
  • Original content can improve conversions

#2 –  “ Digital marketing is only for larger businesses”

This is one of the biggest misconceptions about digital marketing, you could have 1 employee or a few thousand and still use digital marketing to drive business growth. The size of your business doesn’t impact the ability to market for your brand/service/product. Budgets and strategy may differ, but there are tools available at each end of the scale.

Digital marketing is a cost-effective marketing method that can work well for a smaller business. It helps you connect and sell directly to customers alongside being able to analyse them to understand how they converted, why they did, and what their demographic is. Every business is different and one digital marketing channel or strategy might work well for one business and not another. Creating a strategy and using data will ensure the success of your digital marketing regardless of your business size.

Budget is a large factor to consider when creating digital strategies to ensure relevant traffic is being driven to the site whilst being as cost-effective as possible. For example, a small shoe business would not optimise page content in hopes of ranking on page 1 of Google for the term “shoes”, it’s not realistic and the multinationals will, unfortunately, have those top slots covered.

Additionally, you wouldn’t suggest the same small shoe brand to launch a PPC campaign bidding on the keyword “shoes”, the search volume for such a broad term will be exceptionally large, and when you are paying-per-click, a small budget will run out rather quickly here.

Instead, perhaps our small shoe brand should optimise that page for the keyword “white running trainers” much more specific, with less but more qualified search volume and much more likelihood of organically ranking in the top 25 positions on the SERP. The Google campaign will follow a similar story, choose longer-tailed keywords with lower average monthly searches and lower competition leading to cheaper cost-per-clicks, a more efficient campaign and a higher conversion rate – we told you digital marketing works for everyone.

For small businesses like “28 Market Place” we use locally targeted campaigns to reach local customers or those that are looking for restaurants in the areas in which the business operates. This means the users that we are advertising to are more likely to convert, as a. they are locals searching for “restaurants nearby” or b. anywhere in the UK searching for “restaurants in Somerset”.

We tend to use a lot of remarketing audiences for smaller businesses as these are brand’s most valuable customers. We have a Scandinavian nursery decor and toys client that has seen spectacular results from their remarketing campaigns on both social media and Google Ads. Remarketing works in different ways for different businesses, people are likely to purchase toys and décor again and again rather than a mattress company, where you would only buy a new mattress every 6-8 years.

However there are lots of types of remarketing lists, from website visitors who have not yet purchased to cart abandoners and page viewers, it is a very powerful way of re-engaging your target market and should not be overlooked by any sized business.

 

#3 – “ I can get quicker results without digital marketing”

 

It’s interesting that some people believe this, however, it couldn’t be ANY further from the truth. There are lots of methods of digital marketing (PPC, SEO, social media, paid marketing, email marketing etc.) which impact your sales and performance.

Many people don’t see the work that goes into digital marketing, as there is always a professional team behind it, otherwise, in most cases, it’s not being done correctly or efficiently.

SEO is a long-term strategy and seeing results from organic search can take some time, however, with a well-executed plan it can be one of the most successful channels. SEO generates organic (free) listings on Google and depending on the quality of the content, keywords and linking, the higher it gets which places it again, in front of those who are actively looking for what you are offering/selling

Did you know over 70% of people research a company or product before deciding to buy? With paid marketing, you are paying to get your ads at the top of the SERP page, which generates quick results but can cost more for the immediacy. Combining strategies will lead to quick results but sustainable growth for consistently strong future performance.

 

#4 – “ Receiving negative comments on social media is not good”

Of course, any negative feelings towards a brand, product or service is disappointing. All customers are valuable to the business, however, there will always be people who don’t like something and want to talk about it online, that is just the way of social media. However, this is a fantastic opportunity for brands to show compassion towards the customer and use that to their advantage. Replying positively and professionally to either change the customer’s perspective on the brand to maintain a customer, or to try and help solve the issue that they are facing.

For example, one of our clients “28 Market Place” is a high-end restaurant in Somerset and their customer service team does really well at responding to comments, especially the occasional negative comment.

 

#5 – “Digital marketing results cannot be tracked”

Actually, we track and measure EVERYTHING. From how long the user was on the site, where they went before, how they got to our site, what they did on the site, what made them convert, the path it took for them to convert, where the transaction happened and through what campaign and keyword and so much more.

A lot of our job is analysing those who have converted so we can understand what led them to purchase or generate a lead so we can either optimise our content and ads to ensure that we are reaching the right traffic with our ads, that are most likely to convert.

We use:

  • Google analytics to track organic and PPC traffic, performance of landing pages and blogs, what path the customer took to convert and what channels this came from.
  • Ahrefs measures the strengths of a websites backlinking profile and all other things to do with organic performance
  • What Converts tracks and record phone calls so we can see how the customer service Is and where the business can improve.

We use Google Data Studio as the reporting hub for our data for monthly and weekly performance summaries. The interactive dashboard sent to each client shows where there have been improvements/reductions compared to the previous period. This helps us understand what needs working on as well as being totally transparent on the performance with our clients.

 

 

 

So…

We would like to now say, that these myths are completely, and utterly false, and digital marketing is one of the most important methods of marketing there is. The popularity is growing every day with new methods and channels constantly offering business ways to evolve. Contact us today for more information about our services or how we can help your business whatever the size, budget and goals!