Author: Prabodh Dubaka
Today there is an undoubted awareness, that the future of marketing needs the incorporation of digital marketing methods into the firm’s marketing plans. Most small and medium sized business owners, their top management and marketing managers will not deny this today.
However, the area where it gets unclear is how to translate this intention into action. There is no pre-set formula or a cookie cutter approach that works for all businesses. The struggle for the decision makers is how to translate their intention into meaningful action that benefits the business.
Specialization or generalization in Digital Marketing:
Professionals having digital marketing skills can be classified into either specialists or generalists. Generalists are those who have skills in multiple areas like SEO, SEM, Analytics, email marketing among others, whereas specialists have a deep understanding and can do complicated work in one area like SEO link building or PPC or email marketing. These two approaches lead to differences in the results. While the generalist approach gets a lot done quickly, the work is not done with enough depth. The specialists can do a lot of good detailed work in a narrow area. However, the need of a certain business may require a digital marketing expert with a specialization in a different area.
Digital Marketing Consulting is a key to deliver results that make solid positive impact on business.
For each business the existing credentials of its website, its market place and the previous work done will vary. The first job the Consultant has to do is audit the client’s position and figure out their strengths and gaps. The consultant next has to identify the opportunities for making positive impact. On paper, this looks easy but to have someone who can study the entire thing quickly, objectively and help make the right choice is not easy.
The world looks like a nail if the only tool is a hammer
Most digital marketing professionals tend to look at their job through their specialization. That narrows down their ability to understand the client’s need and solve the client’s problems due to lack of big picture. Driven by the limitations of what they can execute, most professionals tend to ignore key aspects of the overall digital marketing plan or deemphasize it to avoid losing the assignment.
Deciding on the digital marketing Budget is another area needing good guidance
The first choice of any clients is to spend as little as possible on digital marketing, they are pursuing profitable business or sales growth not necessarily competing on digital marketing spend. While, a digital marketing professional would like to have as big a budget as possible to deliver maximum possible impact in a given digital marketing specialization like SEO, SEM, Web design or email marketing. A good consultant should be able to win the confidence of the client by correctly educating on the consequences of budget size, current strengths and weaknesses of a business and opportunities gained or missed by increasing and reducing the budget size.
Difficulty in finding a good digital marketing consultant for SMB market
Unfortunately, this big picture view of digital marketing is not easy to develop even after decades of experience. It is a rare combination of experience and talent that blends together to solve each client are marketing challenge with a prioritized list of services to execute. The consultant also has to make effective use of the budget provided by the client.
It’s very clear that there are a few key things that are required in order to get a good consultant for digital marketing. In-depth experience in digital marketing is obviously important. So is aptitude or intelligence. A person who can grasp and understand the strengths limitations of various digital marketing methods in a practical manner. Next, it requires the need to be driven by the need to offer an objective and accurate advice. In the pressure for the immediate sale and the next order – the consultant could easily compromise right advice. They get the next sale but lose the respect or confidence of the clients by the time the engagement ends. Finally, another aspect is the need to be driven by needs and challenges of SMB market. For many people, they like to hobnob with the rich and famous – the Fortune 500 business or a brand. Somehow, they get kick only if they associate with a large company or big name brand. This may look funny, but the reality is most consultants are wired in that way.
These requirements are not easily found in a single person and for that reason, many SMB businesses do not get the right strategy in place that gets them the best solution.
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