The PAY-TO-PLAY GAME
OF DIGITAL MARKETING
As an owner of three global businesses that do business predominantly
online, I have been experiencing a rude awakening with online marketing. There
was a time when I believed the fast development of online digital marketing
technologies and strategies was going to level the playing field for small
businesses. This belief is now shattered. Over time I have come to realize that
it’s still the privilege of companies with deep pockets! As a small business I
don’t have tens of thousands of dollars and wait 3+ months of repeat marketing
to see results. The best most of my small business client (including me) need immediate
sales conversions and given competing financial obligations to keep our
businesses afloat, have small budgets and can only afford just putting out a
few hundreds of dollars for these “micro” digital-marketing campaigns (boost;
sponsor; likes, awareness, targets; engagement; retargeting; conversions, etc.)
that fall short on their promises and don’t deliver on our conversion expectations.
It’s a perfect con! Analyzing the trends, what I realize for sure is that the
digital marketing industry has created a robust supply chain of other “expert” marketing
solutions suppliers that one has to keep paying to greater and greater dismal cost/benefit
results.
From experience, I know it takes time to build a small business brand.
I also know that if you pour a lot of money toward something your will
eventually gets some results. This is a luxury most small businesses can’t afford!
In a digital marketing world of micro-campaigns, at least what I expect and need
to is see an immediate equitable return on investment on my nickel & dime! I
believe the cost of doing business for these social media platforms, apps and
websites selling these digital marketing services can’t be that high! Whether
we are sellers or buyers we all opted in to share our personal and business
information online. Is this a new hidden form of target marketing censorship?
Maybe I am missing something here. I admit I am not digital
marketing guru. But I am definitely a great consumer and reader of all things
digital marketing. As a business owner I am equally fascinated by digital
marketing as I am disillusioned by it. White the literature and video make it
sound so easy and doable, in practice it’s a maze of complicated steps, turns, features,
tools, widgets, pixels, “things” etc., etc. My hopes of leaving brick and motor
business models in hot pursuit of online low touch business models are
gradually dissipating at reality set in. I also learn by doing so hand-on
practical experimentation is key to my learning curve! So I have created my
own campaigns on Instagram; Twitter; Facebook as these are supposedly the
platforms I am to find my “generational” target customers! A few hundred dollars
later, zero conversion effect, but lots of “impressions”! I have even tried
email campaigns, which I must admit usually provide “reasonable” transparent analytics
and modest “promises” i.e. hit that inbox. I have even ventured into in-app advertising
with my product carriers, again the results disappointing and even worse, my
experience in creating the targeting decision trees a nightmare! In all cases
when I review the analytics and compare with the promised consumer conversion behaviors
the correlated matrix results are insignificant. For example the pay-per-click
game if impressions to clicks. Millions of impressions only results in a
pittance of a few hundred clicks. Are we as humans become so “visually impaired”
and so divorced from our intellectual curiosity that we are not curious enough
to “click”?
When all is said and done, I am integrating old fashioned human
connection sales & marketing strategies of engaging customers face-to-face.
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