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The 3 Phases of Digital Marketing Stage Fright

We’ve all been there before…the lump in your throat, the laboured breathing, the feeling of heavy perspiration, you try and organize your thoughts, but struggle to make sense of the scrambled jargon. Stage fright. Known to overtake and befuddle even the most confident of individuals, stage fright can be caused for a variety of reasons. However, a likely cause is a lack of preparation and practice in unfamiliar situations. Therefore, the more you practice, the less likely you are to have it happen. The same concept can be applied to your marketing.

Marketing has undergone a radical revolution over the past decade. The days of simply throwing money at a newspaper or YellowPages’ ad and getting a healthy return are long gone. Digital marketing has completely changed how brands connect with their customers and has absolutely blown the roof off what is possible. The problem, however, is that many businesses make the crucial mistake of jumping right into this new ecosystem without understanding how it works or better yet, how to take advantage of these new tools. So how do you go from being completely new to this environment to becoming a seasoned veteran? Take a look below to learn about the stages that most businesses experience when making the switch to online marketing so that you can avoid these common mistakes.

Stage 1 – Needs Assessment

As previously mentioned, marketing today is completely different than it was just 20 years ago…companies simply can’t just stick to traditional marketing mediums and get the same results that they previously enjoyed. This introduces us to the first stage of the conversation which is the needs assessment. Companies realize that they need to move to digital marketing mediums and begin the process of switching over.

Stage 2 – Let’s Throw Money at It

Once a business joins the digital marketing race, it can be quite overwhelming. From updating your website to picking the right social media platforms to figuring out what SEO is or how it all works together. Which is what traps brands into making the first mistake – they start throwing money at it. The problem with this is that they’ve skipped the most crucial step...they haven’t developed a cohesive marketing plan where they clearly identify their target market and how they fit into all of this. This leads to many companies simply losing their way and spending money on marketing mediums that are totally wrong for their brand. Of course, this ends in businesses not maximizing their ROI and getting frustrated at the lack of results.

Stage 3 – Hindsight is 20/20

This brings us to the last stage of the process where brands realize their error and return to the beginning where they set goals, flesh out their target markets and then develop their plan of attack accordingly. Businesses usually enjoy much more success this time around as they took the time to outline their goals and then set out with a plan of how to accomplish them. The important detail to note about this is that, while much of this may seem like common sense, it’s astonishing how many brands actually make these crucial mistakes that lead to a lot of time and money being wasted. Remember that it’s much better to take your time and plan ahead instead of just throwing all of your marketing dollars into something to see what happens.

Looking to make the jump to the digital marketing world? Endured a poor online marketing experience? Our team of marketers can help! We work closely with you to develop a plan that accomplishes the one mission every business craves…getting results!