Marketing has been around since the first cavemen scratched their handy ‘how to’ guide of hunting water buffalo on a cave wall. It’s a form of connectivity that appeals to broad audiences and in its most ideal form helps businesses and brands to reach their customers and clients. Marketing should educate, inform, and entertain—it’s integrated so much into our lives today that we barely consciously recognize we’re being marketed to until we’re standing in a Best Buy holding a flat screen TV and wondering if there’s a Starbucks nearby.
Marketing used to be a lot simpler and a lot less regulated. Was it expensive? Sure! But there were set parameters around target audiences and marketing channels. Television, radio, newspapers, posters, print ads, and billboards are all considered to be ‘traditional marketing’ techniques. They were impactful because that’s all there was.
At the turn of the century, digital marketing smashed its way into our lives and made marketing more cost effective, measurable, and easy to do. Like anything else, early adopters reaped the benefits of digital marketing techniques, but now everyone is doing it. In a world where it’s so commonplace, how do you, as an individual or a business, stand apart?
Digital Marketing Challenges in a World of Noise
We are being marketed to the second we wake up. The moment we pick up our phone and see what we missed while we were unconscious, the marketing machine that never sleeps has already got us right where it wants us. How many junk emails do you have first thing in the morning for brands you’ve purchased or have pledged undying loyalty to? What about the ads and sponsored posts you see when scrolling social media? A better question is, do you even acknowledge them half the time?
When Facebook first introduced advertising on its platform it was highly noticeable because it hadn’t been there before. Now it’s been there for a while, most people blank out when scrolling unless it’s something that really catches your eye.
This is the noisy world of digital marketing and it’s getting harder and harder to get noticed. We live in a deafening world of marketing noise and it’s become apparent that simply shouting the loudest is no longer enough.
The Dynamic Nature of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is no longer about making the most noise. It now comes down to two primary elements:
- Quality
- Targeting
The quality speaks to not only your product or services, but the quality of your marketing. Flyers with big block letters screaming for a sale is not an effective marketing technique. In today’s world, that sort of ‘in-your-face’ marketing doesn’t fly. Brands need to shoot for a higher quality of marketing that is strategic and hits that educate/inform/entertain trifactor that elevates marketing above the noise of everything else.
The targeting speaks more to how busy we are as a culture. We don’t have time to consume any content that isn’t of interest to us (we’ll ignore the fact that on average we’ve all already spent an hour scrolling social media today). Marketing requires proper targeting because you want to reach your clients and customers directly. Broad spectrum marketing, like sticking a flyer on every car in the parking lot, is ineffective and produces a poor return on marketing investment.
Do One Size Fits All Strategies Exist?
In a word, no. Digital marketing is made up of specific tools and strategies that all come with different pros and cons. There’s no magic bullet, no way to simply click your fingers and create the best possible strategy.
An effective digital marketing strategy is one that’s customized to your business and designed to utilize the tools that will be deliver your message to your buying public.
Start-Up Marketing Budget
If you’re wondering where to start, it’s important to think financially. As a start-up, you need to consider your available marketing budget and how much you’ll need to spend to feasibly reach your marketing goals. The best thing to do is determine how much and how fast you want to scale your business and then speak to a marketing professional at Space Age
If your budget is too small to reach your target audience, you’re just flushing money down the toilet. If you have a large budget to work with but don’t know where or how to properly direct the spending, you’re also flushing money down the same toilet. That’s right, out there somewhere is a proverbial toilet just filled with wasted marketing dollars.
In the end, it’s important to retain the services of professional marketers who can truly help you scale your business and create the most effective strategy for your brand or company.
Managing Unrealistic Expectations
There’s an unrealistic expectation in the marketing world that if you spend money, the sales will happen. This is not true. Marketing is about testing and optimizing. You can’t expect instant sales because there’s a trial and error period. Will you get there? If you’re doing all the right things—absolutely! But take it all with a grain of patience, grasshopper. Spend the money, the sales will happen . . . eventually.
How to Get Started Marketing Yourself and Your Business
There’s a lot you can do by yourself without retaining a professional. You can invest in Facebook Ads, Google advertising, build your social media platform, and more. But if you want the most direct route to growing your start-up and rising above all the marketing noise, you need to hire a professional.
At Space Age, we push the boundaries of marketing to create a customized marketing strategy for your start-up that will help you scale your business. We utilize tried and true methods to elevate your digital marketing and make the best use of your marketing budget. We operate in the start-up space almost exclusively so we’re well-versed in the potential pit falls and fully understand how to navigate you in the right direction.
Let us help, contact us today for a free consultation.