If you often find yourself sitting in a meeting room with your colleagues wondering why you're not getting any new clients when you're spending a ton of money on online ads, then it's time to stop and face the music.
Your digital marketing strategy isn't working.
This is more common than you think, but don't worry because it can be resolved.There could be many reasons why your digital marketing strategy isn’t working. We’ve broken our analysis into two parts based on where you’re at in your digital marketing journey - just as you should when creating content for your customers.
Here are the first two reasons why your digital marketing strategy isn't working and two ways you can fix them:
1. You don't have an actual strategy.
Defining and implementing a digital marketing strategy is not an easy task. It takes time and effort, and it needs to include a whole set of variables and goals. This is why it is important to understand that a single marketing activity, such as publishing posts on LinkedIn, does not constitute having a strategy. Nor does sending an email invitation or having a product brochure on your website. Even though recognising the need for a digital marketing strategy is a great first step, it's one of many to be taken.
The solution: Before you start drafting your marketing strategy, first ask the basics:
- What is the challenge we are trying to solve?
- Who is our target audience?
- What are our goals?
- How will we measure success?
We recommend always including your sales team in these discussions. They interact with your target audience day in and day out, know their frequently asked questions, satisfactions and dissatisfactions, and likely have good ideas on how to increase your sales. This will help you align your marketing and sales efforts and further on, allow for constructive feedback to be exchanged - feedback that could potentially refine and optimise your efforts.
2. You're focusing only on content.
With an abundance of content easily accessible by customers, it has become increasingly harder for businesses to stand out. We've all heard the saying "Content is King," and even though we partially agree with that statement, admittedly it doesn't specify a number of significant parameters. Is all content good? Is it always targeted to the right people? Does it offer value to your audience?
During kick-off sessions, we often hear prospects say "content is not a problem, we're already creating a lot on our own." But when it comes to results, it becomes clear that simply publishing a high volume of content doesn't always guarantee high conversion rates.
The solution: Before you start creating your content, take a step back and look at your personas. Are they clearly defined? Do you understand their goals and challenges? We've noticed that in most cases no personas have been created, which likely means you're writing content based on what your company thinks is important rather than what your target audience is looking to find. And in other more fortunate cases where the personas have been defined, the content rarely addresses their pain point. Defining your personas is indeed the right first step towards creating valuable content, but as you monitor the content's performance, you should utilise those insights to enhance your personas and then reflect those updates in your content.
Time to call in the pros.
Remember that every target audience is different and each digital marketing strategy will be a little different in order to get the best results. If you would like an expert analysis of your personas and digital marketing strategy, click the button below to contact us and schedule a call with a member of our team. Alternatively, you can click here to read the second part of this blog series.
