Online marketing is an umbrella term. It covers the website, search, advertising, social media, email and everything usually filed under online communication. As a small business the question is not which is good — they all are, for something — but which brings you enquiries next month.
Marketing channels are not equal. Some are foundations, some are multipliers, and some only work once the first two are in place.
The foundation: somewhere to send people
Whichever channel you spend on, the traffic lands somewhere. If that somewhere is slow, confusing or dated, you are not losing the money in the channel but on arrival. Which is why starting with advertising is a poor idea if the site is not right yet.
The same applies to social media. A post that lands sends four hundred people to a page that does not say in three seconds what you do — and then four of the four hundred remain.
The marketing channels, in order
1. Google Business Profile. Free, and for a local business it often brings more enquiries than everything else combined. If you have premises or a service area, this comes first.
2. Search. Someone searching for what you sell has already decided they want it. This is the cheapest attention you can get — it simply arrives more slowly than advertising.
3. Paid advertising. This is the multiplier: it brings traffic immediately and stops when the budget runs out. It makes sense once the site is convincing, otherwise you are buying bounces at a premium.
4. Social media. It does not meet demand, it builds it. A long game, and it only works if there is something to show: work, process, people.
5. Email. The only channel where the list stays yours. Worth starting once there is somebody to write to — before that it is maintaining an empty list.
This order is not gospel, but its reverse is almost always a mistake. The old phrase net marketing sounds dated, yet the logic behind it has not changed: first have somewhere to arrive, then bring traffic.
When do you need a social media agency?
When social media genuinely is a sales channel for you — hospitality, fashion, beauty, events — and there are several hours a week of raw material to work from. A social media agency cannot manufacture content out of nothing: the photos, the video and the stories come from you.
If your customers search for you rather than scroll past you, the same money returns more in search or advertising. An honest supplier will say so before you sign anything.
Is a digital marketing course worth it?
If you will be doing the work, yes. A good digital marketing course is worth something not because it teaches tricks but because afterwards you understand what you are looking at in a report. Anyone who can read their own numbers cannot choose a supplier badly.
If you will not be doing it, then instead of a course you only need three questions to put to anyone: what are we measuring, what is the starting point, and when do we look again. Do not work with anyone who cannot answer them.
What to measure if you measure nothing else
One number: how many enquiries arrived this month, and from where. Not reach, not followers, not likes. Write that down for three months and you will know more about your own marketing than any report could tell you.
Online communication starts working when you stop collecting channels and focus on one question: where does the demand that already exists for you actually arise?
Where to next
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