Key evaluations you need to make before you add any more digital marketing into your life.
How many times has someone told you you need a better landing page, a more perfect funnel, smarter audience targeting, more trending tags, a fancier type of ad program, another social media account, better SEO, or other such thing?
If you are a business owner, probably dozens.
And, each person telling you you need this product v. that product, is basically a sales person, selling you another tech subscription. And most are selling is the platform they know best, not necessarily the right one for you. And these folks are usually specialized in particular digital products, because each platform is growing more complicated by the moment. Especially when you factor in integrations and non-stop upgrades.
This is where you need an intelligent overview with digital mapping and organizational knowledge, not one more ‘latest, greatest’ marketing sales pitch.
What if your real need is a clear brand voice and a strategic, well-honed message machine which hits all the most important channels at the most important times?
OR…
What if you need your customer service people to be happier, because they are the ones who deliver what your online presence promises, and would (if they had time) give loads of free social media buzz?
OR…
What if your business changes so fast, that you need an in-house coordinator who knows exactly what your channels are, how they work, and can pivot on a dime to get your message out in time?
Preemptive customer service is at the CORE of great marketing. A little story.
My first “big” website build was 1997 and born of frustration: the place I worked required me to answer the phone and take care of real life customers simultaneously.
As a focused person who prefers to care for the real life humans before me, I found this operational and marketing task frustrating. How could I truly speak about the operation if I didn’t have time to answer questions and express the sensory beauty of the product and environment as well?
So I built an html website, and was able to direct callers to the web address for a complete, visual and enticing presentation of what they might experience if they chose to walk in the door. It saved me (and everyone else) operational stress, so was a win, win, win.
And new people did walk in the door. Over and over.
Taking care of real people ‘inside,’ can help attract new people ‘outside’ in tandem
Each and every week people discovered our place after discovering us on the web. New people. Good people. They were not “our people” when they walked in the door, but became our RAVING FANS because we delivered what we showed on the web. Then they talked us up too and brought their friends.
Our online presence was personalized, authentic, and real. And there were no CTA’s, just a choreographed set content that made them feel like they’d already been cared for – and knew exactly what to expect and how to behave – before they arrived in person. And it was non-manipulative, non salesy, and helped them feel like they knew what to expect.
Of course, this was prior to social media, yet…
Your primary web home– at its core– is a friendly concierge, a central digital space that ushers happy people in your real door. This is the hub of all your digital marketing, and from – and to- the rest of everything flows.
Your digital home can reveal the clear story of your brand, but it is so much more than that. A brand is mostly determined by a visual kit. A concierge is the nexus of where the inside and outside marketing energies meet. And that’s what people need these days.
People are the actual intersection of how brand energy creates the marketplace and begets income and growth as well. If you work with people well, it means more customers show up, more calls for your consulting business come in, or maybe you get better rockers at your concert. Whatever it is, your businesses health is dependent on humans making human decisions.
And this is hugely dependent on your team. And how you treat them.
Only after that is your success dependent on your fast, right, brand forward, efficient marketing. In many cases, identifying your gifted customer service folks and moving them into in-house marketing positions, is your best bet. Then, you need to treat them well.
Pro Tip: Decide who is going to manage your suite of digital marketing before you start adding more of it. Because most of it needs ongoing attention. You know, TECH stuff!
A truly supportive digital media marketing program is not something you can expect an employee to “just add in” to their job. Digital marketing products are varied and vast, with different degrees of workable integrations and customer support, so you need to first evaluate your best people, channels and messaging needs with a clear head and analytical mind. You need a really smart overview of all the platforms out there, and what your current best digital concierge is, before you add on one more thing. They all take time and have unique strengths and weaknesses.
Why? Each marketing platform takes considerable time to understand, and to utilize correctly. And, with the right help from an independent digital maker, you may be able to trim back platforms and centralize your efforts. Making sure you receive real results for the dollar.
Business owners need to know what they want to achieve, who their customers are and what their staff can handle before they start piling on digital marketing demands and expectations. Otherwise you end up with loads of subscriptions doing a bunch of nothing for your business (but doing plenty for the tech broligarchs who built them).
This is where a seasoned professional familiar with all kinds of digital products and their true, utilizable value can help you simplify your marketing and operations.
I help businesses and organizations in my pro work and am available to take on a few consultations in the near term. Contact me for a digital mapping evaluation and content strategy.
A 90 minute appointment with no strings or programs to buy into is $195. Email em @ elizabethmullen.com to set up a time.
FOOTNOTES
1. Digital marketing products are stand-alone services like the ones below. How many are you wrangling with these days? Are they working for you?
- Email Marketing Programs like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Flodesk and the like
- Social Media Platforms like Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, Instagram, etc. for organic content
- Social Media Advertising programs for accelerated results in the above
- Google or other digital ads.
- Websites which can be built in any number of ways, with DIY platforms like WIX and Square or custom development using things like WordPress, Drupal and others.
- Credit card processors like Square, PayPal, or ecommerce built into one of the above.
- Industry-specific content platforms like Substack, B2B Lead Generators, and Ticket Sellers.
- Support products for tracking and centralizing like Google Analytics, Link Trees, and Bitly.
- Additional Design products to backup makers like Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud, and others.
