The marketing industry’s has evolved into a very complex and globally encompassing entity offering players with a wider and even broader range of options and channels where they can reach and connect with consumers on a global scale. This would not have been possible without modern online tools like the Internet and Digital Marketing.
But just like all things wonderful, some aspects of Digital Marketing are shrouded in myth and misconceptions perpetrated by detractors who really don’t know any better. Many who have led to believe in these myths continue to grope in the dark, missing the vast opportunities available to them through Digital Marketing. This article attempts to debunk some of the more popular and more common myths related to Digital Marketing in the hope of providing fresh insights to business owners wanting to take their brands, products or services to a higher marketing plane.
The infographic (click the image to zoom):
Myth No.1: Digital Marketing is Only for Small Businesses
Contrary to what many small business owners believe, digital marketing is not just for large businesses with a large marketing and operational budget. Digital marketing is now offering several tools that are readily available for small businesses to perform the following “big business” core activities:
- Communicate and engage with several customers – even without a call center.
- Sell to customers directly on a global scale – even without a physical shop.
- Get insights and analytical data of targeted customers’ buying preferences – even without a large marketing research company to back you up.
Myth No.2: Digital Marketing is Not a Significant Part of a Company’s Business Strategy
Some businesses treat Digital Marketing as a “white elephant” or “nice to have” office decoration that would really not impact the company’s overall business strategy. Contrary to this belief, Digital Marketing should be a fully integrated part of a company’s overall business and marketing strategy. It is the company’s door towards expanding and reaching out to a wider online audience.
Digital Marketing performed with the company’s website as central hub is the company’s main window of interaction with a continuously growing number of online customers. As more and more people go online searching for information about products or services or engaging in the social media sphere, a company’s presence online can spell the difference between future business success and failure.
Myth No.3: Digital Marketing Can Only Be Successful with Very Large Website Traffic
A large amount of website traffic can of course open the doors of your business to a larger number of potential customers, but it doesn’t mean that each of these website visitors can convert into a paying and profit-generating customer. The key to effective Digital Marketing is quality not quantity, particularly in attracting the right kind of website visitors.
It would be to the greatest advantage of a particular business to have only 100 website visitors where most would convert into paying customers, instead of getting thousands of traffic that do not generate any profit at all. Digital marketing is focused in attracting targeted website visitors that are looking for the products and services that you offer.
Myth No.4: Creating a Website is enough for Digital Marketing
Many business owners believe that simply putting up a website is enough to make a strong online presence and have flocks of potential customers visiting their pages. There is no need to update its content on a regular basis. However, the Internet and the online marketing arena is a constantly evolving and very dynamic marketplace where people seek the latest information of what they need. A website with static content that was updated several years ago will most likely not attract the right kind of visitors that bring results – or not attract any website visitors at all.
Myth No.5: “My Competitors are not into Digital Marketing, so Why Should I?”
This is the kind of business owner who believes in not taking action until their competitors show signs that they do. Many are also complacent, believing that their current customer roster will continue to patronize their businesses through traditional means and channels. A business owner with this kind of mindset will definitely be left out in the playing field by competitors who have launched extensive Digital Marketing campaigns. They’ll surely miss out on a large number of potential customers who have already taken on the digital and online route for finding products and services.
Myth No.6: Any Content Will Make My Website Good
Success in the Digital Marketing playing field is not a matter of creating the highest number of content and spreading it out to as much people as possible by any online means. There is a possibility that such practices will only do more damage than good, particularly if the content created or used is not relevant to the recipient’s needs.
Good Digital Marketing process involves the creation of good, high quality content that is relevant to your targeted audiences’ needs. High quality content will attract more website visitors and if they like what they see, will stay longer and come back for more. Not only that, search engines also love high quality and original content, according more credit and respect to the source website, ranking them higher in search engine results in turn – attracting even more targeted visitors.
Myth No.7: My Industry is too Boring for Traditional Digital Marketing
Almost anything can be found in the Internet, including what others may see or perceive as “boring” industry niches. Each business niche has its own set of targeted customers and with more and more people going online, chances are many would be looking for your products or services offered – even if they seem “boring” to non-customers.
Myth No.8: SEO is Dead
There are a lot of rumors going around that SEO is dead, when in fact it is very much alive and kicking. Even with the strong emergence of Social Media, search continues to dominate the main sources of web traffic. Most online users are using and will continue to use search engines whenever they need information about a brand, product or service. Digital Marketing plays a major role in ranking higher in these search engine result pages – bring your business closer to your targeted customers.
Myths have been in existence for quite a while and continue to proliferate even in this modern and highly inter-connected marketing world. It is a good thing that gathering information at this day and age is so much easier than ever before, giving consumers the tools and information they need to verify fact from myth. Digital Marketing Philippines aims to provide support in this area, particularly in educating more and more people and introducing them to the wonderful world of Digital Marketing.
Jomer B. Gregorio is a well-rounded expert when it comes digital marketing. Jomer is also known as a semantic SEO evangelist and practitioner. Check out our Digital Marketing Services today and let us help you in achieving positive and profitable results for your business.