Should My Business Invest In Digital Marketing?
Marketing, specifically digital, is a common struggle for many businesses, regardless of size. Like most, you might look at competitor activities for direction. Unfortunately, the competition’s success doesn’t necessarily guarantee the same results for you. Experience, budget, and available resources significantly influence your chances of success.
This article I will look at the following:
Is my business ready to spend on digital marketing?
You will likely need a high-quality website
A functional website is traditionally the first requirement for investing in digital marketing. However, you can use alternative native forms on platforms like Google, Meta, and Amazon to generate sales leads if you don’t have one. Nevertheless, you will need to consider some limitations:
- A lack of control over the user experience
- Lower quality leads and sales due to a confusing online journey
- A lack of integration between your systems and the native interface
- A negative effect on your business perception (62% of purchasers will pass on a company with no website)
If native forms aren’t an option, you need a website fit for purpose:
- Your website needs to look professional
- Your website should have a history of converting traffic well
- Tracking and analytics infrastructure should be in place
“If you’re ready to run Digital Marketing on your website, exciting! User experience should be your first priority, so make sure your site is responsive across devices, loads quickly, every button works, and you have an intuitive funnel. Targeted landing pages are perfect for digital marketing since you can get really specific with your funnels. And don’t forget to integrate and test your analytics tools so you can measure your success. Happy marketing!” Monika Halsan founded Healthy Pixels, a marketing agency based in Manchester, UK, specialising in branding, websites, and identity-building.
If your website does not meet these requirements, you are likely not ready to invest in digital marketing. Seek advice from a reputable web designer and user experience (UX) expert. Many digital marketing agencies, like ADdictive, have these resources in-house or through partner networks. Contacting a digital marketing agency might be an excellent first step since they can create or update your website with future digital marketing activity in mind.
Determine your budget
There is a misconception that media spend can be anything in digital marketing. Although small campaigns can succeed under the right circumstances, it isn’t straightforward. Your industry will have a specific minimum cost associated with it, and platforms like Facebook need campaigns to get at least fifty conversions per week to optimise correctly. Otherwise, your campaigns will go into learning limited status, which isn’t ideal.
It would help if you also considered management costs. Professionals charge retainers or a percentage of your media spend to set up and manage campaigns. You could do this yourself if you are knowledgeable enough, but most platforms have a steep learning curve and very little support for small spenders.
To determine your digital marketing budget, first identify your business goals. Goals could be something like more leads, sales or even brand awareness. You can then use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to estimate the cost per click for relevant search terms you want to target. Other tools like HubSpot or SEMrush often publish industry benchmarks for metrics like conversion rates or acquisition costs. Next, get the average lifetime value of your clientele and decide what a realistic cost per acquisition will be. Doing so should help you set a budget range that aligns with your expectations.
If doing your marketing yourself seems daunting and you would instead want to approach an agency, allocating around 5-10% of total revenue to marketing is a general guideline. Still, adjustments may be needed depending on competition and growth ambitions.
Figure out your expectations
Although digital marketing is a powerful tool for most businesses that pledges a high return on investment (according to Google, on average, as high as %200), many companies still lose money, especially in the short run. Therefore, ensuring your expectations are realistic and your business has a suitable threshold for financial pain is essential. It’s important to be prepared for the challenges, and don’t be discouraged if the results don’t meet your lofty expectations immediately.
“I want 200 sales a day and 55,000 clients by the end of the year”, is what a client said to me once when I asked him what he expected to get from his digital marketing campaigns. Considering he had 450 clients on his books and had been operating for two years, I had to lower his expectations.
Yes, when done right, digital marketing can skyrocket your sales and substantially grow your business, but business owners must consider many factors. Can your business manage that kind of growth offline? What will happen if you spend all that money and don’t see the growth you hoped for? Is it even realistic to expect that kind of growth in the first place?
ADdictive Digital offers free consultations to determine exactly this. We spend on-site time with our clients to better understand their business and how they plan to use digital marketing to grow. During our consultations, we look at the entire customer journey and determine how much you can reasonably spend to achieve your goals. For us, it’s essential to see our clients grow healthily and sustainably, and we are experts in determining strategies that do just that.
What is the right kind of digital marketing for my business?
Determining the proper marketing channels for your business comes down to a few basic things. The first and most obvious is your budget. The second is the timeframe in which you are looking to see results. Third is the resources you have available. Let’s look at four common digital marketing channels and how they might be right or wrong for you.
Search Engine Marketing (PPC)
One of the most familiar pay-per-click advertising platforms is the Google Ads Network, specifically Google Search Advertising. In simple language, it’s an auction-based advertising platform where advertisers pay to appear at the top of Google’s search results for high-value keywords. Different advertising environments form part of the Google Ads Network, such as display advertising. Note that you pay for every click on their ads, which drives instant traffic to your website.
The benefit of this kind of advertising is that it’s highly targeted towards users who are looking to buy what you are selling. It’s also an instant results platform where you can expect traffic to reach your website within minutes of your campaigns going live. Pay-per-click advertising is an excellent approach for advertisers looking to quickly drive sales or generate leads online.
“PPC, or paid media in general, is a way to magnify the commercial outcomes you’re already getting. Businesses that are competitive across the value chain, from pricing and product differentiation to customer experience and retention, are best placed to reap the rewards of paid advertising.” George Prodanov, Head of Paid Media @ Love Energy Savings.
The drawback is that it’s a highly complex advertising space with a steep learning curve, which usually has a lot of competition. It can also be expensive and favour those with larger budgets.
Investing in Search Engine Marketing will be an excellent fit for your business if:
- If you have a decent size budget
- You are looking for instant results
- Want to outsource your marketing
- Or have time to learn the skill yourself
Search Engine Marketing is not a good fit if:
- You have a small or unsustainable budget
- You don’t have a threshold for financial pain
- You have no experience and no time to learn
Paid Social Advertising
Advertising on Paid Social is a great way to reach a broad range of customers who are scrolling through their timelines. The biggest advertising platform in this space is Meta, where your ads show on popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. You can advertise on other platforms, like Twitter and TikTok, the latter being the fastest-growing worldwide. These platforms will serve your ads in many formats, including images, videos, carousels, and text, using powerful algorithms to find your ideal clients.
The benefit of advertising on Paid Social channels is its vast reach. Platforms like Facebook have more than 3 billion monthly active users, and by 2027, TikTok is predicted to have 2.2 billion monthly active users. You can also use these platforms, targeting capabilities backed by world-leading artificial intelligence.
The drawback is a high creative turnover, meaning you need new images and videos designed frequently to keep campaigns from becoming saturated. Facebook recommends changing your creative every 4-6 weeks, and TikTok recommends changing it at least weekly. You will need a skilled graphic designer or an agency partner like ADdictive to help you keep up with these creative-hungry platforms.
Another thing is the initial setup of ad accounts. Although paid social platforms are less complicated to master than Search Engine Marketing, setting up accounts, tracking and creating audiences can still be challenging for newcomers. An experienced digital marketing agency like ADdictive can do all this for you.
Paid Social will be a good fit for your business if:
- You have a medium to large budget
- Your products or services will benefit from being visualised
- You have access to a graphic designer or agency
- You have time to set up campaigns or can use an agency
Paid Social is not a good fit if:
- You have only a tiny budget
- Your products or services aren’t suited for social media
- You don’t have access to design resources
- You don’t have time to learn the platform and don’t want an agency
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
One of the most sustainable ways to drive long-term traffic to your website is Search Engine Optimisation. Explained simply, SEO uses website best practices to rank higher on search engines like Google for relevant keywords your customers are searching for. SEO activities range from on-page SEO (improving your website content targeting specific keywords), off-page SEO (building authority through backlinks), and technical SEO (optimising things like site speed and mobile responsiveness).
The good thing about SEO is that the traffic it brings to your website doesn’t have any direct cost, and once you have established yourself on search engines like Google, if maintained, you can rely on it long-term for quality website traffic.
The downside? SEO is not for the impatient. It’s a slow burner and can take months, sometimes longer, to see noticeable results. Plus, there’s a lot of competition for those top spots on Google, and search engines are constantly tweaking their algorithms. So, staying on top of it takes ongoing research, work and expertise.
Search Engine Optimisation will be a good fit for your business if:
- You have a website or ambitions of owning one
- You are patient enough to see your rankings climb
- You have the money or time to invest in SEO
- You don’t need instant results
Search Engine Optimisation is not a good fit if:
- You don’t have a website and can’t afford one
- You need quick results
- You don’t have time or money to invest in it
Client Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are one of the most cost-effective tools for nurturing and growing your customer base. In a nutshell, CRM software helps you organise customer data, track interactions, and manage leads, all in one central place.
The benefit of using a CRM system is that it allows you to have ongoing touchpoints with your customers, which can lead to increased sales and loyalty. Having all your customer data at your fingertips lets you personalise your communications, target the right people at the right time, and streamline your sales process.
CRM will be a good fit for your business if:
- You have a growing customer base
- You capture a lot of data on your customers
- You can upsell, get referrals, or retain customers
- You have the knowhow to set up workflows
- Or you are willing to outsource
CRM is not a good fit if:
- You don’t have an existing customer base
- You are not planning to collect data from customers
Most businesses can benefit from a good CRM strategy regardless of industry or size. There are a lot of cost-effective solutions out there for small companies that don’t have millions of rows of data and are only now starting their CRM journey.
“The pertinent question is not when a business should invest in digital marketing; the answer is always. A successful business owner should already have digital marketing integrated into their business plan. What business owners should really focus on is identifying the right channels and platforms to connect with their customers. This will vary based on several factors, such as the stage of the business, the product or service offered, and the competitive nature of the market they operate in. A thoughtful, data-driven approach ensures that digital marketing efforts are both targeted and effective.” Sangam Mishra, a Marketing Director with 15 years of experience in the Fintech Industry.
Who should be responsible for my digital marketing efforts?
Doing it yourself
When running a small business, you could take your digital marketing into your own hands. You could save money, especially at first, while maintaining autonomy and control. Doing it yourself will take a lot of time and investment and comes with a steep learning curve. As your business grows, all the extra responsibility could become overwhelming. Eventually, you’ll likely spend more time with marketing and less time with other vital parts of your business.
Hiring an in-house team
When your business begins to scale, hiring an internal team is a possible route forward. Having an internal digital team helps you keep some control over your marketing activities by allowing you to establish processes yourself. The problem with internal teams is that salary costs can be expensive, and hiring, training, and management can take a lot of time out of your day.
Outsource to an agency
Another option is to outsource your digital marketing to an external agency. Agencies like ADdictive can work as an extension of your business by bringing expertise and resources to the table that you can instantly leverage. The hiring and management side of your marketing is left to the agency, and you don’t have to carry the hefty salary bill because agencies spread these resources over many different clients to make it cost-effective. Usually, with agencies, your involvement is the most at the start; with long-term agency relationships, it becomes easy to trust your agency partner to do what’s right for your business.
We Offer a Wide Range of Digital Marketing Services
ADdictive can help your business, big or small, with a wide range of services. We offer most digital marketing services in-house and can assist you with the rest through our extensive partner network. Schedule a free strategy call and let’s chat about how we can grow your business.
Derick Turner
I’m a Digital Marketing Consultant focused on large-scale Lead Generation activities across multiple channels. I founded ADdictive Digital, a full-service digital marketing agency based in Manchester, United Kingdom. For ten years, I worked with businesses of all industries and sizes, and seeing my clients grow to their full digital potential is my passion.
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