Well, it’s Halloween week and I couldn’t resist talking about a topic that may still cause shivers in the spines of some marketers out there: digital marketing. I was reading some stats on the subject and it is quite shocking how many professionals out there are confused about promoting themselves digitally, so I thought I’d share some stats with you. It’s food for thought, even if just to see how you compare.
Apparently, most of us marketers believe that a strong digital strategy is more important for long-term success than short-term success. 87% of us, to be more precise. This could be because ROI is difficult to measure on short-term campaigns. It also looks like we seem to be more confident when relying on tactics that we already know well and have been around a long time, such as websites, SEO and email. Recent studies have shown that we are not as confident when it comes to blogging, mobile campaigns and videos. And then I ask… why is that? Well, the same study answers this question by saying that apparently professionals are just not familiar enough with these tactics.
The main issue when it comes to digital marketing, though, seems to be a total lack of inclusion of it in the overall marketing strategy of companies. It seems that, because marketers don’t understand it or don’t know how to use the many platforms, they just choose to ignore it altogether. Talk about the skeleton in the closet!
Digital marketing should be part of an overall marketing strategy and by not adding it to your strategy you are definitely missing a trick. However, the challenges faced by marketers to make this happen are quite understandable: lack of investment in creating strong digital content, as well as lack of investment in creating good digital platforms in the first place seem to be a challenge. Hiring staff that can actually do the job internally also seem to prove difficult, just as it is finding useful and practical training.
Having said that, 60% of marketers know the importance of digital marketing and are actually willing to allocate more budget to it, so they are not left behind. A video, an infographic that can go viral, a mobile campaign or a new blog about a specific subject related to your company can do wonders for brand awareness and it also makes you look ahead of the game. If there are more ways to talk about your brand, why wouldn’t you use them? Some of them are even free.
The good news is that there are plenty of people out there as well (like us!) that can help you achieve the results you want and help you integrate your traditional marketing efforts with a brand new digital strategy. Get the best of both worlds, that’s what I say.
So why not make this Hallowe’en week the date you change your approach. Embrace the witch, catch the bat, and confront the corpse. If you go for it, you’ll see that digital marketing is much more of a treat than a trick.
Marilia Spindler is an Account Manager and creative thinker at Happy Creative, a strategic marketing and branding agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk
