Learning Hub | Digital Marketing Basics

The Three Biggest Digital Marketing Misconceptions

In the last five years alone, the amount of resources available to business owners who want to learn about digital marketing has increased substantially. The communities on websites like Moz and Inbound.org are great examples of this. In addition, tools like HubSpot help streamline common marketing tasks though automation and consolidation.

The ability to automate marketing tasks, however, doesn’t mean that things magically become easy.  The inherent challenge of marketing still exists.

Based on my conversations with business owners from a variety of industries and sizes, here are the top three digital marketing misconceptions that I find myself frequently addressing:

Myth #1: High rankings in the search engines equals more revenue

I grew up with hearing the phrase, “First is the worst, second is the best.” While this may hold true when picking teams in kickball, in online marketing this isn’t always the case.

Don’t get me wrong; Having high search engine rankings could lead to more revenue for your business. But this is only possible if you rank for the right keywords.

For example, you could rank #1 for “bright pink polka dotted socks”. However, if nobody is searching for “bright pink polka dotted socks”, then your first place rankings are only in vain.

This is where the importance of strategy comes in. Instead of chasing high rankings of what you think people are searching for, do your research and find out what people are actually typing in the search bar.

Myth #2: Online marketing yields results faster than traditional marketing

“Slow and steady wins the race.” That proverb accurately reflects the reality of digital marketing.

With digital marketing, even though we have the ability to reach people in different parts of the world at the snap of a finger, we still have to build trust with them. Even search engines base their search algorithms on trust. Your website’s domain can’t hold authority if it doesn’t have any credibility.

In the mid to late 2000’s, there were many people who tried to bypass this trust-based system. They tried to get faster results by doing “blackhat” activities: buying links, spamming, etc.

Then two animals named Panda and Penguin came along and gave everyone a reality check.

The moral of the story? The same thing I mentioned earlier: “Slow and steady wins the race.”

Myth #3: Digital marketing is less expensive than traditional marketing

Digital marketing is a long term investment. As with any long term investment, you need to be willing to lose a little in the short run to gain results in the long run.

Experimentation with short iteration periods is a big part of digital marketing. As business owners, we need to be willing to take risks and test out different strategies. We also need to quickly figure out what’s not working, then redirect our resources into what is working.

Here’s the reality: finding out what doesn’t work costs money.

The more budget that you have to spend, the faster you can get to the point where you figure out what does work. Most small businesses don’t anticipate this. In reference to myths #1 and #2, just because you can purchase an advertisement on AdWords and show up #1 within a day doesn’t mean you’ll be raking in the dough. It’s all about the strategy.

The Truth About Digital Marketing

A successful digital marketing campaign can be very rewarding. Digital marketing campaigns are also a lot more scalable than traditional marketing campaigns.

With a single blog post, you could reach thousands of people, versus the alternative of printing out thousands of flyers that most people would throw away. Launching a targeted YouTube advertisement has the potential to reach way more people now that many are cutting the cord.

If you want to learn how we do digital marketing here at Verde Media, download our free top lead generation tips ebook below. You won’t be disappointed.

 

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