Digital marketing has become an essential part of any business strategy. With the rise of social media, SEO, email marketing, and other digital tactics, companies are investing more than ever in online marketing. However, while digital marketing is critical for success, there are other factors beyond digital that can make or break your efforts. In this post, we’ll explore some of the key challenges beyond digital marketing that impact success.
Defining Your Target Audience
Having a clearly defined target audience is the foundation for any marketing strategy, digital or otherwise. Without knowing exactly who you are trying to reach, your messaging will be unfocused and you’ll struggle to choose the right marketing channels. Unfortunately, many companies fail to do adequate audience research. They make assumptions about their customers or rely on outdated personas. The result? Wasted ad spend, irrelevant content, and campaigns that completely miss the mark.
Take the time to deeply understand your target audience. Conduct surveys, interviews, focus groups, and buyer persona development. Map out demographics, psychographics, needs, goals, and behaviors. Getting a crystal clear picture of who you are marketing to will pay dividends across all your campaigns. Don’t just look at who your current customers are – also analyze who your ideal customers could be. As your company grows and changes, your audience may evolve as well. Revisit persona development every 6-12 months to keep your knowledge fresh.
Not Understanding the Competition
It’s tempting for companies, especially those with an innovative product or service, to believe they have no real competition. However, consumers almost always have alternatives, even if those alternatives are inferior. Failing to research and monitor the competition can sink a marketing strategy.
By studying competitors, you gain insight into how to better position your brand. You can identify weaknesses to capitalize on and gaps in the market. You’ll also better understand customer needs and expectations. Ideally, your marketing should highlight how you are better than the competition. Remember “Customer first, competitor second, self last.” Keeping tabs on competitors safeguards against becoming obsolete.
Don’t just look at direct competitors in your space; also consider adjacent brands that a consumer might turn to instead of you. For example, a boot camp fitness studio should keep an eye on yoga studios, CrossFit boxes, personal trainers, and digital fitness apps as potential competitors. The more broadly you define the competitive landscape, the more opportunities you’ll find to stand out.
Developing a Distinct Brand Strategy
These days, consumers are bombarded with advertising. Breaking through the noise requires a strong, differentiated brand strategy. Do you have a unique value proposition? Are you telling a story that resonates? Is your messaging consistent across channels? Brand strategy is more than logos and taglines. It’s knowing what makes you special and communicating that clearly to your audience.
Without thoughtful brand development, you won’t connect emotionally with customers. Take time to identify what sets you apart. Map out core brand pillars and promises. Craft compelling narratives that focus on meaningful benefits. And ensure alignment across departments. When your marketing conveys a consistent, distinctive brand identity, it will truly attract your audience.
A brand strategy shouldn’t live in a document somewhere collecting dust. It needs to permeate everything you do as a company. Make sure employees at all levels understand and embrace your differentiators. Empower them to share your brand story with the world. Consistency fuels recognition and trust.
Understanding Your Sales Process
Alignment between sales and marketing is perennially a struggle. These teams often have mismatched KPIs and poor communication. However, for digital marketing campaigns to deliver ROI, marketers must understand the sales process. If you drive leads that sales can’t convert, you’ve wasted budget and effort.
Work closely with sales to map out the entire funnel. Learn lead qualification criteria, sales scripts, common objections, and what makes a “good fit” customer. Use those insights to refine targeting and messaging. Share campaign results with sales so they know digital’s impact. With transparency into the sales process, you can channel the right prospects to the team and better prove marketing’s value.
For deeper insights, sit in on sales calls and demos. Observe firsthand how prospects engage and any sticking points in the process. Ask sales reps for feedback on the leads you send. Together, build a shared definition of a qualified lead to ensure proper handoff and avoid wasted follow-up.
Gaining Insights from Customer Service
Customer service is a goldmine of consumer insights. By tracking support tickets, social listening, reviews, and other feedback channels, you gain incredible intelligence around pain points, needs, motivations, and more. However, many marketing teams operate in a silo, never tapping into this data.
Routinely check in with customer service. Review trends in complaints and questions. Note what loyal, high-value customers have in common. Mine reviews for improvement areas. Use analytics on help articles to identify knowledge gaps. Customer service interactions allow you to refine targeting, speak to pain points, and create more relevant, high-converting content. Ignoring this data means missing key opportunities.
Set up a process for customer service to easily share insights with marketing. Schedule quarterly reviews to go over trends and data together. Capture feedback in your CRM to inform persona development. The voice of the customer provides priceless perspective – don’t leave it untapped!
The Synergy of Digital and Non-Digital Marketing
As this post illustrates, factors beyond digital marketing play a crucial role in the success of online campaigns. Strategy, competitive intelligence, brand positioning, sales alignment, and customer insights form the foundation upon which digital marketing is built. A weak base leads to poor results and wasted budgets. But when non-digital elements are tightly integrated with your digital approach, everything works synergistically to drive ROI.
Therefore, avoid silos. Recognize digital as one part of an integrated strategy. Leverage non-digital insights to refine ongoing optimization. And continue bridging gaps between teams through process mapping and shared KPIs. With comprehensive alignment across the organization, digital marketing can fully deliver on its promise and propel your business growth.
The lines between digital and traditional marketing continue to blur. Ensure your teams work collaboratively to paint the full picture of your customers and market. An integrated approach will allow you to maximize results across every channel and initiative.