To create really good marketing, you need to be good at two things: one, the specific tactic(s) you’re doing – including ad buying, web design, creating content, etc. – and two, understanding how what you do fits into the big picture for the business.
For the most part, the marketing I see falls into the first category – it’s good at what it’s supposed to do. But issues that I see arise because the second part hasn’t been considered.
In fact, most marketing tacticians don’t have the “bird’s eye view,” understanding why it’s important to know how their contribution fits into the big picture. And, if you ask them about it, they’re typically not interested. I have talked to agencies that have said they’re only concern is about website traffic – not the sales results from the leads or the traffic they generate.
Why is this important? Especially if it has more to do with sales than marketing?
Because often marketing is “blamed” for not generating sales results. And if there’s a problem in that area – in the hand-off to sales, for example – then marketing looks bad when, in fact, the marketing may be fine. It’s the big picture of what’s going on that shows this.
Here are three examples of what can go wrong with good marketing.
- Marketing sends more traffic to the website – but it’s not doing anything else.
I’ve seen situations where website traffic is great and healthy- but it’s not generating results – sales or additional foot traffic. When that happens, it’s important to figure out why. If more and more people are coming to your website, and it’s not helping generate more sales leads, something else is going on. That’s where analytics are important, as well as understanding how marketing fits into the bigger picture.
In some cases, it may mean that the website itself is the problem. There are many ways to look at the website analytics to dig into this issue. And it is an issue!
If you, as a client, aren’t seeing any more leads or sales, then you’re going to think the marketing itself isn’t working. But that may be the wrong conclusion. The problem may be the landing page, the call-to-action, or maybe even how fast (or slow) your website loads!
It takes a perspective and an eye on the larger picture.
2) Google Ads work – but are cannibalizing organic results – crushing the client.
I had a client who was spending a lot of money on Google Ads and kept doing so because the ads were driving more traffic to his website. The problem, however, was that his organic results were deteriorating. Over time, as Google sent more traffic to his website, he was losing those people who might find him if he weren’t spending on ads.
What was going on? Why was this happening?
The company that was handling his Google Ads didn’t care – they were making lots of money and were showing that the ad purchases were driving traffic to his website. As far as they were concerned, it was mission accomplished.
As an agency, they had no skin in the game when it came to what happened next. Or how it might affect the website’s Google Authority. Without someone looking at the “big picture” on behalf of the client, this went undetected. As it turns out, by the time I found out this was going on, it was having a disastrous effect on the business and they weren’t at all aware of what was going on.
3) Marketing is generating leads – but the leads aren’t closing.
I’ve seen this problem at the enterprise level and at the small business level. Again, the problem may not be the marketing – it can be the process that happens after the marketing has created sales leads. But the leads aren’t closing – and it makes the marketing look bad.
In some instances, the problem can be as simple as how fast sales follows up on the leads. If it takes too long, a company may lose the sale to a competitor that acts faster.
I’ve also seen cases where sales doesn’t follow up on the leads at all because they don’t see them or get them.
Or it might be that the leads themselves aren’t very good, but marketing is not receiving that feedback. There needs to be a feedback loop that shares information about why leads aren’t good so marketing can be honed to create better leads.
Seem a bit complicated? These examples are both strategic and a bit “down in the weeds” when it comes to understanding exactly how marketing works. But that’s because they look at both the marketing tactics and the big picture of how marketing generates revenue.
If you’re having any issues with your digital marketing, contact me and let’s talk. I’m happy to help you figure out what’s not working and why.
