Why Digital Marketing Fails

I’ve been in this industry for a little over 7 years now. I’ve seen and learned a lot during my time creating digital marketing campaigns, managing projects, and managing clients.

I consistently push digital marketing and explain the reasons why businesses should have some sort of digital budget, so it feels strange to write a blog post about why digital marketing fails. But it does.

Luckily, there are ways to prevent your digital marketing from failing. Below are four key lessons I’ve learned over the years and how you can help your company avoid the same mistakes.

Lack of Digital Marketing Budget

This may seem straightforward. Of course, digital marketing will fail if there is no budget. Who is surprised about that? This scenario happens more often than I would like to admit.

We’re a local digital agency and we try to make it work with most clients that need our help. For example, we had a client just down the street from us that had a very small budget for the website and digital marketing. She’d been struggling to keep her business afloat and thought that Google Ads was the best solution.

We setup a few search campaigns, but the budget was just simply not enough. We did keyword research and explained to her that in order to get more business, she’d have to invest more in marketing, but it simply didn’t work out.

If you are going to embark on a digital marketing campaign, whether it be PPC or otherwise, it’s important to consider a truly impactful budget. Don’t simply spend the money just to run an ad campaign. Instead, listen to what your digital agency is telling you and start with a budget that will move the needle.

If you simply don’t have the budget to do so, then it may be time to consider other marketing avenues (for example, investing in your website).

Insufficient Internal Marketing Resources

I could talk about this for days. Most companies think that when you hire a digital agency, they’re going to do all the work. That is an incorrect assumption.

As your digital marketing agency, we are your partner. We take what we know about your business, your goals, and your budget and work together to develop a plan. To effectively execute that plan, we need someone on your team to ensure that we’re getting what we need to keep going.

It’s very helpful to put someone in charge of your relationship with your agency that is organized and responsive. We’ve had clients leave us in the past because “we weren’t doing what we were supposed to do,” but the reality was that we weren’t getting feedback or approval enough to keep moving.

To help your digital agency be the most effective, it’s important to make their main point-of-contact someone you can rely on and that can provide your agency with quick feedback.

Lack of Education

Digital marketing is complicated. We do our best to simplify it for our clients, but there will be sometimes where you’ll have think a little more technically to understand what we’re trying to do.

For example, when we begin a custom website project, we start with a sitemap. Once a sitemap is approved, we do a wireframe. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve run into a client that says they don’t understand either of those things – and simply dismiss it.

If you have questions throughout your website process, ask your agency. If you have questions about your digital campaigns, ask your agency. Your digital agency should be able to explain things at a higher up level that you can understand, and it’s important that you make the effort to understand it as well.

Improper Resource Utilization

You go to an auto mechanic for car expertise. You hire a CPA for help with your taxes. You hire a digital marketing agency to do your digital marketing.

It is critical that if you sign up with a digital marketing company, you let them do what they do best. We’ve had several clients in years’ past that have been the ones to get in their own way when it comes to digital marketing.

“Well, I heard we should do XYZ because so and so learned this at their last company, etc.”

I’ve personally run into this a lot, and I’ve had many question my knowledge of digital marketing because they’ve heard it differently from somewhere/someone else and then question our approach. Digital marketing is almost an art form of sorts. Many individuals and companies approach it in different ways. Plus, with the digital landscape constantly changing, new ways to do things come up as time goes on.

Try not to force your digital agency into your box and let them work with the process they have. That element of trust is key to any digital marketing campaign’s success and if you hinder this, it could cost you a lot of money – and a relationship with a good digital marketing agency.

In conclusion, the above reasons are why digital marketing fails sometimes. We always aim to give our clients an enjoyable, stress-free, successful digital marketing experience, but it’s important to be wary of the things you, a client, might do to hinder your own success.

For help with your digital marketing, click here to contact us or call us at (239) 362-1271.