"Why Doesn't Digital Marketing Work for Us?"

So, you've got your business running... maybe even growing. You've made the decision to use digital marketing to grow faster...

You've had a website built (or made one yourself)...

You've got a Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn (etc) social media profile that you're updating...

Maybe you've tried 'boosting' your social media posts, running some AdWords campaigns, and maybe even set up some email autoresponders...

You've done what you thought would work for SEO - wrote some pages stuffed with the keywords you want to rank for, asked people to link to them, shared them to social media...

You go to check your analytics... you see a bit of local and mostly direct traffic.

You see some engagement on your social media... but it's mostly friends/family/employees and a few main fans... and your follower growth is starting to plateau...

Your ecommerce store rarely gets a direct sale...

You get a few leads via your newsletter and email funnels...

Why is your business not exploding? Where's this "internet marketing power"?

Well, there's a whole lot more to it...

I'm not going to rant along and explain everything, but here are some of the basics that I commonly see missing (as a digital marketer/owner of a digital marketing agency):

1. Proper sequence - Not everything can be a direct response offer. You need to give people a chance to get to know the value of what you offer - exactly how this works will depend on where they are in their own buying process.

Do they know the symptoms of the problem you solve?

Do they know what the problem is?

Do they already know what the solution is?

Are they interested in the solution? If so, it doesn't mean they want it from you! (At this point at least...)

You'll need to create appropriate content, offers and logical steps that call out to people who are in each stage of the buying process - and educate them with relevant information, and make an appropriate 'next step offer.'

Early in the sales cycle, with new ("cold") leads ("in the awareness stage" and "at the top of the funnel") you'll have to help them understand the problem, more than your solution. Your offer may be nothing more than a link to more specific information, for free - or in exchange for their contact info.

In later stages of the buying cycle (still "cold," but in the "consideration stage") you'll need to decide what an appropriate offer looks like.

A really good deal, on an obvious product? Sure, a direct response ecommerce offer may work!

In a competitive space? Higher ticket item? Subscription? Product in need of demonstration? The right offer is probably some kind of additional valuable information - just send it to them via email so that you capture their info and can continue the conversation.

Just because someone leaves your offer page, doesn't mean they aren't interested!

Use retargeting to bring people back to the sales funnel when they leave.

Use email marketing to bring leads back into the sales funnel - use segmentation campaigns to identify interests, and automated engagement campaigns push a relevant offer. Don't forget to use excite/ascend style campaigns to help new customers consume and share what they buy!

Think about what the visitor knows:

- What were they looking for/at when they came to the media (blog/social post/landing page/product page etc)?

- What is the subject and content of the media? What will they have learned, if they consumed it?

- Now, what makes sense as a 'next step' for someone who doesn't really "know, like and trust" your brand yet? Is it really "buy this thing now" ?

2. Developing awareness - It takes effort and time, or money. Simple as that.

No media platform will expose your content to non-consenting members of your target audience (their subscribers/users!) for free. Search engines will only recommend proven articles (traffic and social signals demonstrate people actually consume the content after discovering it), and social platforms will only expose your content to highly engaged followers.

You need to make the effort - reach out to people (email, phone, message, network) - or pay the media platforms to put your content in front of their users.

When you create a social media page and invite all your friends, family and employees - unless they share your content with their friends and family (to a limited effect) - or you use actual promotional methods (ads, social networking), that's about the extent of the reach your going to get. Don't forget that if people stop engaging with your content on Facebook, you'll stop being able to reach them - even when they follow you.

3. Following the 'Dream List'

There are media outlets, influencers, other businesses, individuals and organizations out there that can have an immediate growth effect on your business. Make a list of these people and simply take the time, and make the effort, to reach out to them and try to spark a relationship and deal. Social networking is what social media platforms, like LinkedIn, are all about. If you don't have the time/effort/guts to reach out to those people who can move the needle, expect it to stay where it is.

There is so much more.

So many lessons to be learned, specific strategies and basic marketing fundamentals to understand and apply.

The internet doesn't exist to magically grow your business, and your cat memes aren't going to help (unless you sell or service cats??)

Take the time to learn and apply what it takes to take advantage of the potential of the internet to make your brand a discoverable authority that supplies endless sales qualified leads or direct ecommerce revenue.

I love helping people implement their own digital marketing strategies. It's exciting to dive into a new client's analytics and help identify the issues in their digital funnels. If you want some help, reach out to me on LinkedIn.

If you don't want to learn and manage your digital marketing drop me a line and I'll see if I can help.

There is an opportunity to use the internet to help ANY business - B2B, B2C, NPO, ecommerce or not, local or global - someone out there can increase your business, someone out there - whether they know it or not - wants what you offer. Remember, all sales are human-to-human...

Do they know, like and trust you? Or did they find your competitor...

Let's fix your funnel.

-Eric MacDougall