The Crisis of Confidence in Digital Marketing

Working with an agency partner and measuring marketing ROI take the doom out of digital.

Are marketers scared of digital?  A September survey of 1,000 marketers released by Adobe says yes.  This report is as interesting as it is pretty, so I say it's worth checking out.  If you aren't too afraid...

A Reason to Be Scared

To be fair, most agree that "marketing has changed in more in the past two years than it has in the last 50." Given that kind of change, it's no wonder that many are uneasy about the road ahead. 

“Marketers are facing a dilemma: they aren’t sure what’s working, they’re feeling under-equipped to meet the challenges of digital, and they’re having a tough time keeping up with the pace of change in the industry. What’s worse, no one hands you a playbook on how to make it all work,” said Ann Lewnes, chief marketing officer, Adobe. “But the opportunity for marketers is too great to let uncertainty slow them down.”

To make it even worse, more than half of companies report that their digital marketing approaches are "a constant cycle of trial and error."  With so much at stake, throwing darts in the dark doesn't seem like the best approach.  I realize that I may be biased here, but I think this is the perfect reason to call in an agency partner.

Two Solutions:

1.  Take a Buddy (an Agency Partner)

Launching an enterprise-level digital marketing effort for the first time (and to a lesser extent, each successive time) can be incredibly daunting.  One of my favorite parts of working with marketers is the moment they realize that they don’t have to have all of the answers on how to plan and organize their digital solution because we’ve got that covered. 

You see, as an agency partner, we’ve done this before.  We are here for that very reason.  We have a team to handle the many moving parts: project managers, content specialists, graphic designers, user experience experts, developers, quality assurance reviewers and much more.  When you are traveling with someone who has already made the journey many times, it isn’t so scary.

2.  Turn on the Lights with ROI

It’s easy to fear the unknown.  Around 80% of surveyed marketers have significant concern about understanding whether campaigns are working, proving campaign effectiveness and demonstrating marketing return on investment.  Just like the Boogie Man hiding under the bed, when the lights are turned on real ROI and marketing measurement, the scary shadows all disappear.

Planning and organizing are important, but without measuring campaign effectiveness, it’s still just trial and error.  Some form of ROI calculation will show what works and will make future digital marketing projects much less scary.