The Importance Of Being Realistic

Many Businesses Still Have Their Heads In The Clouds

They believe that if they simply have a fancy looking company website they have successfully achieved an effective web presence. That is the equivalent of believing that you're good at marketing if you’ve had some company brochures printed and you make them available to anyone who asks for a copy. Be realistic! It won’t happen. You will end up with a cupboard full of expensive brochures. In the real world, your website, like your brochures, needs to be widely distributed to prospects using a highly targeted marketing strategy.

Of course, there will be those who already know your company or organisation and may look your website up online, however you simply cannot adopt a “build it and they will come” attitude when it comes to developing a successful website. After all, you didn’t have your website built simply for the benefit of existing customers, did you? If you did, then you're getting it wrong – very wrong.

To really succeed you have to ensure that your digital impact screams about your business from the rooftops. This can only happen if you incorporate a realistic digital marketing strategy into your budget. Throwing money at it doesn't guarantee that you win the prize though, working at it diligently and setting realistic targets whilst constantly measuring and honing your online marketing activities does.

“Great achievements take time, there is no overnight success” – Leo Tolstoy

Be under no illusion, it takes blood, sweat and tears to be an ‘overnight success’ in any field. In the world of digital marketing, the winners are those who are persistently promoting themselves through a variety of activities, checking the statistics and constantly steering their campaigns in the right direction. The stats will tell you whether your website is working well for your company or not. The trick is to really understand what is working and what is not and to monitor and adjust your online marketing to gather in more clicks, likes, traffic and conversions.

The Brave New World of Digital

“Half of every dollar I spend on advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which half.” - Henry Ford

It must have been very frustrating for businesses back then to not know what was and what wasn’t working in the way of advertising. Sometimes, in a newspaper advert, the advertiser would ask for a code to be quoted on any sales enquiry form. This was to at least try to log which newspaper produced the best results. It was crude but at gave some insight to the marketing budget holders. Marketing professionals love digital marketing because it puts them in control of marketing budgets and they can realistically and confidently invest in the digital strategies that they can actually see working.

Nowadays it is far easier to see where the advertising or marketing budget is working and where it isn’t. There are far more sophisticated figures, stats and analysis to be obtained from your online activity and you really can be realistic in your ambition to ensure that your marketing budgets are being maximised.

Which Social Media sites are working best for you? Which product articles are being shared and liked the most? Which customer reviews are gathering the most click-throughs to your website? Which of the digital marketing strategies are producing the lowest and the highest ROI results?

If Henry Ford had known the answers to these questions, do you think he’d have invested in digital marketing? Henry Ford was a man of vision and innovation - of course he would. So, when you are ready to work hard and invest in digital marketing, remember to Be realistic about how challenging it can be.

So, now you know, with digital marketing, you need to be in it for the long haul or you may as well just get more company brochures printed and store them in a cupboard. You also need to choose the best partner. If you are in any doubt whether or not Big Red Digital are the partner for you, just take a look at our case studies and the results our clients are already enjoying, then ask yourself can you afford not to get in touch with us?