Our Managing Director Sean Brown and Advertising Specialist Josephine Mondino addressed and clarified four main digital marketing myths and urban legends that businesses should be aware of to effectively grow their digital presence and marketing strategy.
4 Digital Marketing Myths and Urban Legends:
- There is no bad publicity/reviews
- Anyone can do marketing
- Quality products and services will sell themselves
- All rely on Buyer Personas
1. There is no bad publicity/reviews
In marketing, you might hear the following sayings: “There’s no bad publicity” and “Every publicity is good publicity”. However, this myth is only true to a certain extent as bad publicity might lose you contracts, shares, buyers and more.
“There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
– Oscar Wilde”
Any type of publicity these days needs to be controlled. For example, replying to both positive and negative Google reviews is important. Replying to negative reviews in general helps provide some context behind a bad experience to viewers. Moreover, it is an opportunity to ask for further feedback to improve your products or services.
Is there such a thing as bad publicity? Of Course!
But it all comes down to how you deal with them. If you can accept the criticism, then either apologise or keep your stand whilst acknowledging their point of view and thoughts by responding to reviews on Google, Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and more.
If it sounds more realistic than optimistic, it is a valuable review. For example, Google reviews of 3.9 average with good feedback and suggestions would benefit the company way more than a few 5-star ratings with no feedback.
Therefore, it is up to companies to protect their publicity; focusing on the positivity of it all and ensuring that there is control and maturity when dealing with negative publicity and reviews.
Hear the example of bad publicity George Calombaris suffered discussed in the podcast.
2. Anyone can do marketing
Yes, anyone can do marketing. But not just anyone has the capability to run a company’s marketing strategy. Marketing has so many aspects and intricacies that come into play, and expertise is an essential factor that should be taken into account.
With the advancement of technology, everyone can gain a Digital Marketing Certificate on Google, Hubspot and “BOOM!”, you can become a marketer. But it’s not as easy as it seems…
Having a website is only a portion of what digital marketing involves. In fact, you need to have the right tools to implement the appropriate technical fundamentals and ensure that your website is fully optimised for search engines to recognise it from a ranking point of view.
Nevertheless, we are only scratching the surface of what digital marketing is here. There are many more factors to include in digital marketing, such as Inbound Marketing, Pay-per-click (PPC), Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), and more. Hence, involving professionals and specialists who have the experience and expertise in optimising and future-proofing your digital marketing strategy is crucial for your business’s success.
3. Quality products and services will sell themselves
Having a great product or service is simply like having a pretty birthday cake and not having your loved ones to share it with.
That’s a myth. The fact is, great products and services never survive simply because they are great
Purely having a quality product or service is not sufficient to unleash its greatest potential. You need to attract the right audience via the proper channels to succeed. Fostering trust and relationship building between your product or service and your customers, knowing their interests, and targeting them through suitable mediums is crucial.
Conveying the right message on the right medium is critical for you to communicate effectively with your target market.
Listen to our podcast’s example of a good product targeting the wrong market.
4. All relies on Buyer Personas
A buyer persona is a research-based persona that businesses use to define their ideal customers and know more about their interests, demographics, psychographics and more. However, some companies might be implementing their buyer personas ineffectively.
You must not generalise too much nor be too intricate either.
Buyer Personas need to be drawn from a delicate balance between generalisation and intricacy. For example, buyers with similar interests might be worlds apart in character but fall in the same category. Segmenting your database and customers to identify their characteristics is essential to developing a compelling buyer persona.
As a marketing agency, we try to ascertain buyer personas from your customers but not necessarily through their age, gender and occupation demographics. By focusing more on what their interests and pain points are can we really get their attention.
Let us know your thoughts on the above-mentioned Digital Marketing Myths and Urban Legends! Contact us!
