What’s the first thing that springs to mind when you hear the words `digital marketing’?
This is just a wild stab in the dark, but we’re guessing you’re not feeling all warm and fuzzy about the concept. Digital marketing has a bad rap.
It’s not (always) fully deserved, so in this blog we’re going to debunk the 7 most common myths about digital marketing.
Here goes.
It’s just for big (and wealthy) business
It’s a common misconception, particularly amongst small businesses, that digital marketing is just for huge organisations with tons of money.
In fact, it’s a level playing field.
The sole trader with a tiny budget can compete in the same digital space as a multinational corporation. Provided the strategy and targeting is right, a small business can get the same results from digital marketing as the big guys — more leads and more customers.
If you think about it, even the largest companies started out as small businesses. How did they grow? It certainly wasn’t by crossing their fingers and hoping customers would somehow stumble across them.
Nope. They used creative marketing to get the message out there.
SEO isn’t important
Some people think search engine optimisation doesn’t matter. Why do they believe this?
No idea. Perhaps they think websites are powered by steam engines or something.
Right now, people are searching on the internet for the specific thing your business offers. Those people are busy and easily distracted, so to attract attention your pages need to be high up on Google.
SEO is the only way to make that happen. Therefore, optimising content for search engines is a no-brainer. (Unless you want to hide from new customers — in which case, ignore what we’ve just said.)
I’ve already got a website so I don’t need to do anything
Even the most sparkly, gorgeous websites on the planet will suffer if they’re left unattended for too long.
This is partly because they need maintenance under the bonnet — watching out for broken links, carrying out plugin updates and backups as protection against cyber attacks, amongst other things.
Refreshing the content is equally as important. Here’s why:
Google changes the search algorithm constantly. In the time you’ve been reading this article, they will have made a couple of tweaks.
While the majority of these algorithm changes are minor, an abandoned website is at risk of slipping down the rankings into obscurity. Without regular updates, it can get lost and forgotten in the vast wilderness of the internet.
Google loves fresh content. When you add something new, it waves an attention-grabbing flag at the algorithm bots and says `Hello there! Our business is a going concern, and we care about providing informative content for people’.
If you think updating content sounds like hard work, this brings us on to the next myth about digital marketing:
Quantity beats quality
You’ll have seen many examples of businesses which think digital marketing is all about quantity.
Hourly social media posts, wordy blogs which are as useful to readers as a chocolate teapot… We won’t go on about it.
The fact is, quality will always win out over quantity. You don’t have to drive yourself crazy thinking up ideas for multiple social media or blogs. Just slow it down.
A couple of social media posts per week is fine. Rather than struggling to write three or four short blogs, it’s far better to produce one longer, well-written, informative article which answers questions and solves a problem.
This type of content shows off your expertise. It’s also more likely to gain high-quality backlinks which boost your website’s ranking on search engines.
Digital marketing is all about loads of traffic
This may sound counterintuitive, but digital marketing isn’t aimed at drawing as many people as possible to your ads, social media channels and website content.
Instead, it’s about targeting the right traffic — the people who are most likely to become new customers.
Whether it’s PPC, social media ads or keywords, if you target too broadly it becomes harder to pinpoint an audience who wants to buy from you. Rather than trying to attract everyone, narrow it down to customers in a specific location or age bracket, or to people with specific interests.
It’s better to target a small audience who convert than hundreds of people who bounce straight off your content because it’s irrelevant to their needs.
AI can do the job for me
AI is a fantastic tool when it comes to mundane, repetitive tasks such as data analysis. It’s also incredibly useful when it comes to research.
Unfortunately, AI is totally rubbish at anything which requires creative thinking, empathy and emotional intelligence.
In other words, it’s incapable of taking over digital marketing. AI simply doesn’t have the ability to be imaginative, attention-grabbing and… well, human.
Be especially careful about relying on generative AI for all your content creation. There may be consequences if you overdo it.
Google’s March 2024 core update doesn’t simply downrank websites which bombard readers with inaccurate, spammy AI-generated content. It can (and already has) completely de-indexed some websites.
Digital marketing gets instant results
Actually, this is sort of true. Some digital marketing activities such as Google ads and PPC campaigns can bring in revenue quickly, provided they’re properly executed, tracked and tested.
For longer-term results, your best option is to invest the quick-win revenue from, say, a PPC campaign into a more sustainable strategy such as SEO and content.
In an overcrowded digital world, where multiple businesses are jostling for attention, it takes time to gain the trust of your target audience and build a relationship with them.
(A bonus myth) Digital marketing companies promise the world and fail to deliver it
OK, let’s be honest. This isn’t always a myth.
If you’ve had awful experiences with digital marketing companies in the past, we don’t blame you for being cynical. You don’t want promises of riches beyond your dreams and page 1 of Google in a nanosecond.
There’s a lot of that out there.
If you’d like some sensible, realistic advice from people who know what they’re doing — and results you can pay into the bank — we’d love to hear from you.
Call Neil and Sonya at Pumpkin on 01489 590 092 or get in touch here.
