If Digital Marketing is So Easy, Why is Everyone So Bad at It?
Reason #1/45: Digital Marketing is Larger and More Complex
than You Realize
“Digital Marketing is larger than you imagine, it is larger than you can imagine.”
Few marketers realize the enormity and complexity of managing digital marketing programs. Digital marketing has an unlimited ability to consume marketers’ time, budget and resources due to its ever-expanding in size and complexity including:
- Executives (marketing and non-marketing alike) “suggesting” (to put it kindly) new programs, campaigns and capabilities – regardless of their applicability, relevance or priority. Second Life, podcasts, weblogs, portals and microsites have been / are executive favorites.
- Digital marketing is captivating for managers and practitioners – there is always a newer and shinier feature, capability or program to pursue. It is seductively easy to add new digital marketing program components.
- The pressure for your organization and its digital marketing programs to appear modern and stay competitive is omnipresent.
Continued program expansion adds to the several hundred existing skills and capabilities that digital marketers must individually or collectively possess to succeed. To gain a sense of what it takes for digital marketers to function effectively, consider the following subset of skills, concepts, systems and capabilities needed to market online effectively:
Functional Components
- Website development and maintenance
- Content management systems
- E-Commerce
- Mobile Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing
- Social Media
- Online Support
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications
- Application Integration
- Marketing Integration
Operating & Technical Components
- Hosting and infrastructure
- Vendor sourcing and management
- Project management
- Data and System Security and Privacy
Outcomes
- Demand Generation
- Opportunity Conversion
- Customer Engagement
Performance
Specific actions to
- Drive increased visitor traffic
- Increase site activity (including minimizing site abandonment)
- Generate more qualified leads
- Improve sales conversion ratios
- Increase average order value
- Increase levels of user participation
For many organizations, digital marketing is becoming as large and complex as their Information Technology functions.
Summary
The size and complexity of digital marketing presents continuous challenges for digital marketers and their organizations. Without proper perspective, strategy and planning, digital marketing teams and their programs will get lost in the complexity and perennially underachieve.
About this Series
The experience, data and insights gained through the development and delivery of our Digital Marketing Insight service form the basis for this series of posts. More information is available about the “If Digital Marketing is so easy, why is everyone so bad at it?” series.
Thank you,
Andrew Dennis
Southbury, Connecticut
Reach me directly at andrew at northpage dot com