Digital marketing is not a magic pill

You know those infomercials that have those wobbling plates that apparently if you do a squat on, you’ll lose weight faster than you can say ‘fad’. Sometimes I feel like clients expect the same results for their business with digital marketing.

I just want to be very clear, there is no quick fix when it comes to attracting a flood of customers for your business. Whether you’re a service based or product based business, I can tell you now it just doesn’t happen overnight.

I attended the Business Chicks 9 to Thrive conference a few weeks back and I left halfway through both days. I’m really fed up with these stories we are told over and over about the overnight success and the big break. It just doesn’t happen that way. People aren’t telling you about all the money they invested, how they side hustled for years before their business took off and how what really made the difference in their business in the early days was that work that means you have to get your hands dirty. I can assure you that they didn’t set up an awesome Facebook ad campaign and BOOM sales flooded in.

Digital marketing is amazing for scaling your business. But it doesn’t take one area of awesomeness to make this difference. You need an integrated marketing strategy. Sorry about the industry jargon. What I mean by this is you need to attack it from a whole heap of angles and it all needs to be consistent with your messaging and your offer.

Another misconception that I’m constantly coming up against is the idea that ‘Facebook is free’. Well, yes. But if you’re just starting a business page now you’re not going to have much luck reaching people without at least a small advertising budget. There’s a reason why Mark Zuckerberg is a kabillionaire! And watch out, because Facebook owns instagram and the reach you can achieve organically is fast declining on instagram too. It’s just the reality that social media is now becoming pay to play. Any social media management that promises you AMAZING results without any paid advertising is bad news - run for the hills!

The thing with digital marketing is that it’s amazing if you’re already sailing your own ship. It’s amazing when you meet someone in the street/networking event/pumpkin fair and predictably they go and stalk you online. Your website and social media are like your virtual business card. They reassure someone that you can be trusted. They allow people to pour over your case studies and content and decide whether you’re really the person to solve their problem.

Unless you’ve got a massive budget for advertising, it’s going to be quite tricky to have cold leads flooding in. Digital marketing supports your business and helps you put your best foot forward online. It backs up all the hard work you’re doing. But it’s not a magic pill. There is no magic pill and quick fix for a struggling business in this world.