Planning pays off

Why you need a digital marketing strategy—not just digital marketing

As we’ve detailed before, digital marketing is an important part of doing business in the twenty-first century, for HVAC companies, dentist’s offices, and restaurants alike. However, with the wide proliferation of free and paid online marketing tools out there, many business owners find themselves in a position where they can start to take on their own marketing. But, should they?

In this blog post, we’ll outline why digital marketing requires a digital marketing strategy—and a professional group of marketers to do things right.

What’s the difference between digital marketing and a digital marketing strategy?

Thanks to technology, it’s becoming easier and easier for businesses to take on certain marketing tasks by themselves. Take social media, for instance. Facebook estimates that in the third quarter of 2016, there were 1.79 billion active users worldwide. Facebook and other platforms like Twitter and Google+ are easy to use and understand, and that’s why more and more business owners are posting and tweeting for their own company. Further, businesses are taking on pay-per-click advertising, blog post writing, and even live video blogging using platforms such as Facebook Live.

We think it’s great that businesses are taking such an active role in their marketing—as we’ve talked about in prior blog posts, marketing just works better when our clients are active participants. But, that doesn’t mean you should go it alone. As we’ve detailed before in our blog posts, small businesses can struggle with digital marketing unless supported by a company like 5 Fold.

Think of your marketing in terms of baking a cake. The individual components—PPC, SEO, content, video, social media, and more—are like the ingredients for your cake. But, even if you have all those ingredients gathered together and ready to go, can you really bake a delicious cake if you don’t have a recipe? You don’t know how much flour to use, what should get added after you put in the vanilla, or how long to stir the batter. Sure, you can wing it, but your risk of wasting your ingredients on a burnt, dry cake are pretty high.

That’s because baking a cake without a recipe is the same as using digital marketing tools without a digital marketing strategy.

What does a digital marketing strategy look like?

A digital marketing strategy is a long-term marketing plan created by professional marketers. The strategy is built upon a mix of industry research and firsthand experience on best practices. This includes knowledge of what has worked in the past: one sign that a cake recipe will work is that someone has successfully used it to bake a cake in the past. There’s one caveat to this, however.

Unlike a cake recipe which can be used over and over again to bake the same cake, marketing strategy need to be adaptable and ready for change. That’s because internet marketing is constantly undergoing changes. That’s why we’ve built our marketing strategy to be flexible, and we’re constantly improving our methods and products. We keep also our skills fresh (and learn new ones) with regular training and learning.

Various aspects of digital marketing can be taken on a la carte by anyone with access to a computer. A digital marketing strategy, however, is something that only digital marketing professionals can create. Having experts working on your campaign will not only ensure better results and more calls, but it takes the stress out of having to manage your own marketing and keep up with a fast-changing internet marketing world.

Ready for 5 Fold to get started on your digital marketing strategy?

5 Fold Marketing offers all-in-one marketing packages that bring together all the ingredients needed to create successful digital marketing campaigns. We’re pioneering a path as a hybrid marketing agency, and we’d love for you to work with us. Give us a call at (480) 568-3411 or contact us online.