As a marketing agency based in Colorado (with a New York location, too!) that has recently become a HubSpot Diamond Partner, we know a thing or two about digital marketing, web design and development, SEO, and sales enablement (plus, we are pretty good at ping pong).
We didn’t get this way overnight, though. Like any success story, we’ve spent a lot of years with our heads down and our ears open, living digital marketing and working our asses off so we could all get to the point where we knew what the hell we were doing.
I’m not just telling you all of this to brag, though. I’m telling you all of this because I want to share some digital marketing pro tips with you, the marketer. We’re all still trying to figure out the “winning” recipe as the digital marketplace continues to evolve, but as a Diamond Partner, we’ve figured a few things out already, too.
So, without further ado, here are 4 digital marketing pro tips that you can count on when times get tough.
Pro Tip 1: Without Buy-In, It Doesn’t Matter How Much You Buy
Generally, there are two types of marketing campaigns;
- High Budget
- Low Budget
Right? Pretty simple. Does it mean that you’ll be more successful if you have a higher marketing budget to put toward campaign activities? Not necessarily.
While it’s true that you can do a lot more (and do it a lot quicker) with a larger budget, a larger budget does not automatically equal success. Time and time again, I’ve seen clients that throw all of the money in the world at marketing in the hopes of seeing results, but aren’t truly bought in.
Without buy-in, it doesn’t matter how much you buy. You won’t see the success you’re looking for.
It truly takes buy-in, support, and time from every individual involved. You need to truly believe in your marketing and not just look to it as a last-ditch effort. And, don’t fight your team every step of the way. Trust is certainly a major component of buy-in. Whether your team is a marketing agency, or a group of individuals that you work with internally, you’ll never see success if you aren’t focusing on the wildly important together.
Pro Tip 2: Sometimes “Slow” is Fast
It sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But, trust me on this one. Sometimes as marketers we get caught up in the whirlwind of every day demands and then the quality of our work is sacrificed in an effort to just dump a bunch of content out there as quickly as possible.
Contrary to what you might hear other marketers say, just “having content out there” is NOT better than taking your time and delaying the launch of a piece to ensure it’s actually contributing to a cohesive strategy. Not in the long run. Marketing is always a long-term game plan. It can be tempting to completely skip over the strategy-building and go straight into delivering content, but that won’t get you far.
Sure, you can realize short-term success with some rushed content, but slow is fast in the long-term.
And when I say “slow”, I don’t mean you should second-guess everything, go through 1,000 rounds of revisions, and never get anything accomplished. There is obviously a balance to achieve what you want and still do it the right way. Start with the end in mind, always, and lay the proper foundation to continue building upon later.
Pro Tip 3: Don’t Always Think Like a Marketer
As a marketer, how can you not think like a marketer? Sounds like some sort of Jedi mind-trick, but it’s not. This one is pretty simple, but it’s one of the most important to remember.
When you’re building a campaign, creating strategy, or executing content, it’s important to think less like a marketer and more like your target audience.
It goes against your natural instinct, but it’s the key to getting your messaging right and to really make it resonate with your personas. Just think about it; you are somebody’s target audience. And when you’re seeking out content, receiving emails in your inbox, and browsing through a website to make a purchasing decision, what are you looking for? What works for you and what drives you to a competitor instead?
Thinking about user experience and your own behaviors when you’re going through someone else’s marketing funnel can put it into perspective for you and help you add a human element back into your own marketing campaigns.
Then, when all is said and done, you can go back to relying on those marketing skills you’ve built up to properly execute the campaign and rake in those leads.
Pro Tip 4: When Things Go South, Don’t Automatically Blame SEO
When you aren’t seeing the results that you want, it’s easy to jump to conclusions and find a scapegoat. In my experience, that scapegoat is always SEO.
Just because you aren’t on the first page of Google does NOT mean that is the root of all of your marketing woes.
SEO is important, don’t get me wrong, but there are a lot of things you should be evaluating within your campaign first. Don’t second-guess your SEO strategy and completely shift gears before you even give it a chance to work its’ magic. If you're looking to keep up-to-date on this topic, check out the SEO training the HubSpot Academy put together
In SEO we trust.
There you have it; 4 digital marketing pro tips from a HubSpot Diamond Partner. We’re full of pro tips, and not just the ones listed in this article.
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