More than 62% of the global population has access to the internet. With that, you’ll be shocked to know that people spend more than six hours each day, on average, using the internet. And with an ever-increasing number of people tapping into the power of the digital world for different purposes, we’re witnessing more and more businesses using digital marketing to increase their sales, generate more leads, acquire more customers, and grow their business.
BUT!
As much as you’d be looking forward to tapping into the power of the digital world, the problem is that there are just too many myths surrounding different strategies. Such myths may be stopping you from unlocking the full force of digital marketing. To help you gain clarity, we’ve put together this list, where we’ll be shedding some light on ten of the most popular digital marketing myths that you need to stop believing in.
Myth 1: Digital Marketing Is Only Profitable for Large Businesses with a Huge Marketing Budget
This, right here, is one of the most popular myths in this space. The reality is quite the opposite. Big businesses do take advantage of digital marketing, but it is very much tailored to cater to small businesses. Large corporations tend to spend millions of dollars on huge, complex marketing campaigns, but unlike traditional marketing, you can have a killer digital marketing campaign with a budget as low as $100 or even lower! Digital marketing is known to be cost-effective. You don’t necessarily need to start off spending thousands of dollars on your online marketing campaigns. Instead, you can set your budget and build a foolproof strategy to keep your budget in check. While it is true that larger budgets give more flexibility with what your marketing strategy can entail, as you start generating results, you can start scaling your campaigns appropriately to achieve the best possible results.
Digital marketing is effective for any business, no matter the size, the product/service, industry, or niche. It is by and for everyone looking to grow their brand. With that, a massive budget for digital marketing is not a prerequisite. A typical, small business budget can be just as effective as a corporate sized one. However, it is recommended to spend around 5% – 10% of returns on your marketing campaigns.
Myth 2: Having a Website is Enough to Grow Your Business
Yes, a website is enough for your audience to discover your business online and gain more insight into it. But is it enough to gain more traffic and generate potential leads? No.
Many brands have this notion that having a website is enough to promote your brand. Without implementing a digital marketing strategy, your website will not only be hard to discover, but it will not stand out in the sea of your competitors. Unless your marketing goals don’t include website visits, leads or online sales, a solid digital marketing strategy is essential to generate the goals your business needs. Just having a website simply does not make the cut. A combination of effective digital marketing strategies like content marketing, PPC advertising, social media marketing, and SEO will help generate more traffic and put your brand in front of your target audience.
Myth 3: The More Content You Post, The Better Your Results Will Be
Some may argue that this is partially true. We actually agree that the more you post content, the better. But theres one thing people often times forget. Quality over quantity. While the “myth” may be true when looking at it in a simple way, what is false is the thought that putting content out there without building a foolproof strategy does no good, and can even be harmful.
Popular brands know the power of content creation and use it to their benefit. Let’s say you push out 100 not-so-great and relatively boring Facebook posts each month compared to pumping out 25 crisp, high-quality and intriguing posts. Which do you think would help you gain more leads? Obviously, the latter. Not only will publishing high-quality posts help you position yourself as an industry expert, but it’s important to note that Google seriously prioritizes ranking high-quality and relevant content over anything else.
Building a few effective pieces of content tailored to your target audience has much more potential than bombarding your audience with more random content. It is also important to carefully curate and strategize your content before posting it. Remember, content is only an effective tool if your target audience finds it informative and helpful. Low–quality content, even if in high numbers, is just a waste of time and resources for both parties.
Myth 4: Email Marketing is Not Effective Anymore
Email marketing may be “old school” to some, but it’s far from dead. As new digital marketing strategies are on the rise, many people believe that email marketing is no longer as effective. This is a myth and far from reality. Email marketing is just as effective, if not more, compared to a few years ago. It is a key marketing strategy that is effective in pulling leads. Email marketing has an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent to this day, and it is expected to grow. Does that sound “not effective” to you? This is definitely a myth that hurts many small businesses as they don’t see a need to start any email campaigns. Making that decision ends up losing them countless leads and sales.
58% of adults check their emails first thing in the morning. It is a proven way to solidify customer retention. Since email marketing is strategy thats direct to your customer, it can be tailored and personalized based on a variety of factors from age, demographics, or even previous web pages the customer has visited. This personalization makes it an effective tool to appeal to your target audience. Email marketing is an important strategy to reap long-term benefits.
Myth 5: Its Best Be on as Many Social Media Platforms as Possible
Absolutely not! Though it may seem like the best thing to do to strengthen your digital marketing strategy, this is a huge rookie mistake made by amateur brands. Yes, the internet is broad, and there are many ways to reach your target audience, but trying to manage more social media platforms than you can handle is a waste of time and resources.
Utilizing the appropriate social media platforms that work for your brand more effectively than managing different social media platforms all at once is the best thing you could do for business, especially if you are just starting out. Analyzing and researching which social media platform best suits your business is the key. Do some research in to what kind of engagement you will get on different platforms and which platforms are used by your competitors, and how. Just because everyone is using Instagram and TikTok, doesn’t mean it’s the right platform for your business. Putting your energy and resources into the right platforms is more effective than having scattered resources in various platforms. As time goes on and your resources grow, you can always add yourself to new platforms with new strategies. Don’t overwhelm yourself!
Myth 6: Mobile Optimization Isn’t Necessary
We’ve witnessed people claiming mobile optimization to not be necessary. That’s not right. With over 5.31 billion unique mobile users and an ever-increasing number of people spending too much time using their smartphones, it’s a no-brainer to optimize your website for mobile users. Mobile devices, excluding tablets, generated around 54.4% of the global website traffic in Q4 2021. Imagine a majority of your prospects and customers navigating your website on their smart phones yet not being able to do so easily, since your website is not mobile-optimized. Having a mobile-optimized website is important. And if your website isn’t mobile-optimized, we’d advise you to get started on it immediately.
Myth 7: More Traffic Means More Conversions
This myth is spread widely online, especially by newbies in this field. More traffic does not necessarily imply more conversions. Your website might generate more traffic than before, but what is important is how much of this traffic actually gets converted to paying customers. There are a number of factors to consider before concluding this common myth.
Ranging from ROI analysis to how is the user engagement on your page, these factors have to be deeply analyzed before concluding anything. Maybe from an amateur point of view, more traffic is more conversions, and this can be is slightly true. If you have high traffic on a daily basis, but your conversion rate is low, it just proves that traffic and conversion are not directly proportional. The goal is to generate the right traffic. The traffic made up of the people who have the highest likelihood of converting. Otherwise, you will be wasting your valuable marketing budget on traffic that has no interest in buying from you.
Here are a set of questions regarding your traffic, to discuss with your team or agency and consider:
- What is the main source of traffic?
- How much is this costing us?
- Is your website targeted to that specific traffic?
- How is the user engagement?
- How long are users staying on each page?
- How are the ROIs?
When you analyze, you will come to understand that traffic and conversion do not have much co-relation as the internet portrays. A low amount of traffic could lead to extremely high conversions if your targeting is right. In order to truly understand how traffic is affecting your conversions, you need to consider factors such as user engagement, ROIs, etc., as a measuring tool and not just solely based on how much traffic is generated. Overall, just because your website gets a flurry of traffic, it does not equate to more conversions or higher ROIs.
Myth 8: SEO is Not Effective
Quite the opposite! SEO is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies. Even though SEO has certainly become extremely competitive and tricky, its effects remain on top. It is still one of the most effective digital marketing strategies today.
SEO has highly been optimized to prioritize quality and relevance in terms of the content displayed. The era of spam and unnecessary content is long gone, and crisp, high-quality content is here to stay, thanks to the high optimization of SEO tools. Yes, SEO requires a lot of back-end effort, especially now when the market is so competitive, but with the right strategy you can definitely reap the benefits of this underrated optimization method. With the advancement in SEO mechanisms and algorithms, high-quality and relevant content is ranked higher; hence it is up to you to ensure necessary reach and effort is put forth to establish that your brand page is discovered higher in SERPs (search engine result pages).
SEO delivers great visibility and generates the targeted and right amount of traffic. It’s absolutely important to build brand credibility and trust and also to increase user engagement, traffic, and conversions. SEO is without a doubt, more effective than it was years ago, thanks to modern technology. It helps ensure that organic traffic to your website is constantly on the rise and the right client base reaches your webpage.
Many small businesses have this notion that SEO is too time-consuming and expensive. If used right, SEO is one of the most cost-effective tools with a great ROI. Any good marketing strategy implements SEO, and new techniques are constantly built and improved on to generate more quality traffic. Put in the effort and resources in the right SEO strategy, and you will not be disappointed!
Myth 9: A Digital Marketing Strategy is Not Necessary
Many minor businesses have the assumption that just being online is enough. They believe that having a steady digital marketing strategy is not a priority. This is one of the biggest mistakes you could make. Being online is one thing, but being successful online with good ROI numbers is another.
Having a successful digital marketing campaign requires a robust, foolproof, and steady strategy, which has to be well thought through, researched, and analyzed. This includes reaching into your customer base, what the customer wants, how you are going to deliver your product to them, what your long-term and short-term goals are, just to name a few. A digital marketing strategy includes a content plan, social media campaign plan, influencer plan, SEO, email marketing strategy, PPC, etc. is a critical component to the success of your business offline and online.
A successful digital marketing campaign is no doubt the one that encompasses all key techniques and is well planned and strategized ahead. If you are not prioritizing a strategy, you are essentially missing out on a prime opportunity to reach the audience you need to and instead, standing in front of everyone you can just hoping for the best. That doesn’t sound efficient! You will have to plan out and analyze what works best for your company and how to reach your audience and goals through an effective digital marketing strategy. Simply being online is not going to help your brand grow. Having a resolute and strategized workforce of digital marketing campaigns is the key to a successful brand.
Myth 10: Digital Marketing Should Be In-House to Be Effective
One of the biggest myths floating around is that you need to hire dedicated experts and build your own in-house digital marketing team to achieve the best possible results. And while you can always go ahead and build a team, it is quite the investment. You’ll have to spend top dollar and too much time kicking your marketing operations from the ground up. You will also be directly responsible for that team you hire, which takes up much of your precious time as well.
At the same time, you’ll see people saying things like “you shouldn’t hire a digital marketing agency, they’re expensive and they’ll just scam you”. While some agencies may be all talk, no action, when you hire the right digital marketing agency, you’ll be subject to outstanding results at a significantly cheaper cost than a similar team that’s in-house. Not to mention the amount of time you’ll save not having to manage a team for yourself. From helping you save your money to allowing you to tap into a dedicated team of experts and tools, outsourcing your digital marketing operations can be quite beneficial.
Conclusion
Digital marketing and the internet can be a tricky field to navigate. Add in a few myths, and it can be even more perplexing. We genuinely hope that some of the most common myths have been busted and you have learned a little on how to tackle these common misconceptions. The goal was to make you feel more at ease and clear about starting your digital marketing campaigns and strengthening them down the road. At Growrilla Digital, we have the expertise and tools to tackle any and all of your digital marketing needs. So you don’t have to worry about running in to any of these myths or making any mistakes, we’ve got it covered! Contact us and let’s see how we can push your company further!
As digital marketing continues to grow, so will the number of myths. Our solid advice: Take your time to analyze and decide before concluding any thoughts on the myths that are looming over us in the digital marketing space, or any industry.
Published on March 8th, 2022 by Jay Spivak