Social media is a strong brand contact tool because it simplifies but often disseminates information about a product or service. Working with around 400+ brands across different verticals and company sizes as a digital marketer, the Confessions of digital marketers have seen a steady rise in social media adoption in a brand’s marketing mix. SME’s mainly perceive social media as a sales tool rather than an interaction tool. They don’t deny that social media sites can generate leads, but they do so at a price.
Now, the question is whether or not a small business has the budget and time to use social media campaigns as a lead generator for their sales funnels. SME’s and startups that rely on social media as their sole lead generation source to power their funnel may be disappointed. In this article, we are going to discuss some confessions of digital marketers.
Common confessions of digital marketers:
- They don’t always stick to their schedule:
Even if they are pro at designing content and marketing calendars, work back plans, and endless lists. The schedule keeps them on track and focused. But they don’t always – or can’t always – adopt them. In reality, they believe that nimbleness is an important aspect of my job as a marketer. Plans are awesome. The plans should be concrete, forged from data, and synchronized with release schedules, among other items. All of that, though, is subject to change. It’s also important that you’re adaptable and ready to adjust.
- Sometimes they take inspirations from others:
Some of the marketers are influenced by others, both individuals and businesses. In terms of tactics, this means they keep lists, bookmarks, pinned material, and snippets of information. Things that move, encourage and talk to them. Where can someone find this information? It can be as easy as flipping through a magazine or watching a commercial on television. And sometimes it’s more deliberate – they go on a quest to see what others are up to.
The important thing is what can you do with this information? They go back to these archives when it’s time to build. Try to take bits and pieces from one campaign and combine them with a few others to create their edition. (They do not steal whole ideas, just a few pieces of them.) And, more often than not, they draw inspiration from these outlets and come up with a completely different idea – one they would never have thought of if they hadn’t seen what others were doing.
- They don’t always rely on data:
The information age has arrived. Many professionals believe in “data-driven decisions”. And it’s right. The more information you have, the more educated your marketing plans would be. Data is beneficial, and you can review it regularly. Examine who is visiting your website, who is making purchases, what they are purchasing, their demographics, which email subject lines are working, and so on. You believe the subject was excellent. You tell your team that they can do more posts like this. What you didn’t realize is that your post received a lot of traffic as a result of an external event – something completely out of your control – that drove people to your subject.
Likely, you’ll never be able to reproduce this. The same can be said for traffic lulls. Perhaps you observed a decrease in site traffic over the weekend. You’re depressed, and you’re afraid you’ll be shot. You believe the blogs you published over the weekend were a waste of time. These are awful subjects. Images are dreadful. This is a poor piece of prose. You’ve been worrying for days. Then, during a casual chat with your IT department lead, you learn that your site’s host was down on Saturday. Those traffic drops were unrelated to your material.
- They can’t always keep up with trends:
Keeping up with the market and knowing what is trending is one of the hallmarks of any career. It’s not at all wrong to keep an eye on what’s going on in your industry, as they have seen these issues pop up regularly in job applications, interviews, and interactions with peers. It is, in truth, necessary. You don’t want to get stuck in a rut or make your work look stale. Having said that, what works sometimes works. So, if you’ve discovered a winning social media recipe or a brilliant email marketing cadence, stick with it.
- Sometimes they have to recycle their old content:
Some professionals say that they pull off this trick quite often. A journalist said he started to do it when he was a writer. To the point that he didn’t want to plagiarise himself. It used to give him the creeps. But once he got over that and learned how to repurpose content like a pro, he discovered that he could transform one blog into multiple social media articles, a webinar script, and even a poster.
Suggestions from professionals:
If you’re searching for content or marketing strategy papers, here are some suggestions to get you started:
- Get a calendar first. If it’s digital or print, do what works best for you. Create a calendar of essential events, such as your launch date, a major meeting, or a critical sales call.
- Then work backward, bringing in the tasks you need to complete before the deadline and allowing enough time to complete them. Be sure to leave some space for buffering. Things are bound to go awry.
- Build a spreadsheet program of your choice as well. Use this to plan out the tactical elements you’ll make, determine who’s responsible for what and by when, and keep track of progress. Depending on your work style, it may be basic or very detailed.
- Make big plans, but keep in mind that they aren’t indestructible. It’s up to you whether you save a new version of the file so that you have a record of whether you delete your work and save it under the same file name to conform to the new flow.
- Speak to your colleagues as well. Professionals spend a lot of time debating ideas with my coworkers. It’s not nice to be trapped in a box. That’s not nice, and it’s also restrictive.
