My Digital Marketing Agency Turned Out To Be An Absolute Joke

 

 

Ian: My digital marketing agency turned out to be an absolute joke. Andrew, what are you doing?

Andrew: Who are you talking to?

Ian: We’re on man, we’re on.

Andrew: You should’ve told me you were on!

Ian: I’m explaining about digital marketing agencies being a joke and here you are in the toilet while I’m trying to deliver this thing.

Andrew: Well, it’s like my mum used to say, “If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie.” So that’s what I did, that’s why I took so long.

Ian: That’s so fifties Australian, or does it come from England? Anyway it’s very cheesy.

Andrew: I don’t know where it comes from... So what are we here for?

Ian: Well look, this is not a sensationalist headline, this is not just lets get people’s attention.

Andrew: What’s the title?

Ian: My digital marketing company turned out to be an absolute joke.

Andrew: Oh, I didn’t know you had one?

Ian: You can still hear the chain in the background.

Andrew: I thought we were your digital marketing company?

Ian: These are the kinds of things that clients say. I had someone call up today and actually say this almost verbatim, that’s what they said. Because they were promised the world. They were promised (I’m using the most overused word here) integrated digital marketing campaign with, here you go. They’ve sent me the email with what, not everything they were promised, but some of the components. First thing, website field; massive in itself. A blog, or content strategy; an email marketing setup and some sort of training; a social media campaign; seo; video marketing; of course the integration of all of these so a digital strategy of some sort; some customer research, feedback and profiling, so working out your target market; and then providing regular analysis and reporting. This is what they took on, all in one foul swoop over a period of six months.

Andrew: What was the result?

Ian: They ended up with a dogs breakfast of nothingness that just sort of achieved some results but was not coherent in any way. Half of the stuff  is outsourced to other companies, either here or overseas.

Andrew: Exotic lands, or now sorry, Mother Russia has come into the act.

Ian: Mother Russia is on the map.

Andrew: Mother Russia is on the cheap SEO bandwagon.

Ian: Yes, so I suppose when we’re saying overseas exotic lands we have to include Russia now.

Andrew: Now it’s Mother Russia as well definately.

Ian: Very exotic lands. So, the reason behind the title is people are disillusioned I think with the fact that they're going to get this company who are going to walk in and do all this magical stuff for them, and it’s going to be a success. I’m not saying that you can’t go into a multipurpose multitalented company that can provide you full service, I’m not saying that. All I’m saying is the common story that we get is people coming to us disillusioned with being promised the world, and delivered on very small amounts of it. Not being rolled out in bite size chunks, or not approaching specialist companies. Now I haven’t even gone into the details of what they actually got out of their SEO campaign, because really that should’ve been once their website was there, that really should’ve been an integral focus and everything else should’ve been really supporting that. I would’ve thought? But, anyway these are the kinds of things that people have been saying to us, so I thought let’s address this. How do we explain to people that a digital marketing agency these days has really got their work cut out for them delivering a full suite of services and delivering it well?

Andrew:  See the thing is, everything that you’ve mentioned there should be done and have to be done but you can’t do them all at once. We’ve talked about so many times on this...program? I suppose we can call ourselves a program?

Ian: After so many videos we can say we’ve got a program.

Andrew: That the first thing that should be done for any website is what’s known as "On Page" SEO. Now, a lot of SEO agencies will tell you…

Ian: I’m just taking notes.

Andrew: Yeah do that, go for it. A lot of SEO agencies will tell you that on-page, no you don’t need to you’ve just got to yet your meta tags and all that sort of basic mumbo jumbo. However, I keep saying if you do your on-page SEO properly, whether you do it yourself or better off getting someone who knows what they’re doing, these are the sort of results you can expect. Now, we should’ve got a proper slide for this but anyway. This was a new client of ours, this is where they were for quite a few months, just up and down up and down. We get involved: bang, bang. What this means is more traffic, and this is from Google Analytics, this is just a basic chart. But if your SEO company or digital marketing company is not giving you results like this, this is what you’re after and all that we’ve done so far is on page.

Ian: This is true.

Andrew: That’s it, we’ve done nothing else.

Ian: And this client if I recall has come to us with a developed website, from another company. It took them a while to get it up and going but…

Andrew: It’s a nice looking site, it works well.

Ian: There’s a few things that have to be tweaked with it to really make it a lot more SEO friendly, but we’re in the process of that and already that’s very positive.

Andrew: Yeah, and that’s just a week basically, just a weeks worth of work. Those results already, that is a huge spike from what they were getting before.

Ian: So this is organic traffic from key words?

Andrew: Yes, and I should point out for those of you who don’t know, that the blue line is impressions or the amount of times they appeared in search results. And the red line is the amount of clicks, so even the clicks have gone up slightly, and that’s just for that period.

Ian: So basically what you’re saying is bloody hell we’re good?

Andrew: Yeah, that’s what I keep saying around the office, maybe we should get a T-shirt? “Bloody hell, I’m good.”

Ian: I don’t think bloody hell’s the word we normally use.

Andrew: No, it’s not but this is a kids program.

Ian: It’s a childrens program.

Andrew: Yeah exactly.

Ian: They’d be talking about digital marketing wouldn’t they?

Andrew: Yeah, of course they would.

Ian: This is the thing which I don’t understand, with SEO being so integral in getting targeted traffic to your website, why these digital agencies don’t put that importance on SEO? Now, it seems to be this big chat about, “Oh content, as long as you update your website and you’ve got your branding right, it’s all good.” It’s not that straightforward, it’s got to be a focus.

Andrew: Well their focus is we’ll get you to number one.

Ian: What does that even mean?

Andrew: That is the ultimate goal. However, in this she’s nowhere near number one in any of her keywords, she nowhere near the first page because it’s that new. Right and she’s already getting more traffic and already getting more clicks. If the traffic we were sending her wasn’t relevant she wouldn’t get anymore more clicks.

Ian: No, that’s right.

Andrew: If it’s somebody from Taiwan for example and she has a business here they’re not going to want to see what her website’s about because it’s not relevant to them, it’s not in their country.

Ian: Well she’s very much providing a local service.

Andrew: Yeah exactly, it’s not an online business as such. So, I don’t understand it either.

Ian: No.

Andrew: Just like I don’t understand what is this.

Ian: Yeah, why is that there? We’ve already got coffee.

Andrew: I think this is kind of like budget cutbacks, because those drinks were very expensive to make and I think they’re saying to us; milk.

Ian: Just drink out of the carton.

Andrew: That’s all we could afford this week.

Ian: Save the coffee, save the glasses and save the washing up.

Andrew: Yeah, for goodness sake. I need to have a word to him.

Ian: Queries, questions, worries, concerns?

Andrew: Complaints? Or no actually, oh you can’t see them.

Ian: Call these guys.

Andrew: There’s one waving.

Ian: They’re waiting to take your call. Were the really waving or was that just flicking hair or something?

Andrew: No I think she was just getting up.

Ian: Okay, [email protected] is our email address or you can visit our website www.madscientistdigital.com Yes, we’re opinionated, yes we’ve got a lot to say and we’ve got controversial titles and what not.

Andrew: But we like your feedback.

Ian: You know we’re actually trying to help, thats what trying to do. We’re trying to help our clients, the industry...find some mutual understanding I suppose. That’s why we’re talking about digital agencies trying to be too much for too many people. Take it from us, it’s impossible, because we have actually tried it. We have treid it, we went down this path.

Andrew: We have, and we failed.

Ian: It’s hard, it’s the school of hard knocks. Anyway, enough said. See you next year.

Andrew: Goodnight.

 

Ian Hopkinson is the original “mad scientist” – a digital creative who is passionate about the online market place and its potential to enable businesses to compete on a global stage. He is the CEO and Founder of Mad Scientist Digital.

https://madscientistdigital.com/2014/09/the-absolute-joke-my-digital-agency-turned-out-to-be/