Some marketers only tell you things that they want you to know. Here are the rest that they don’t want to tell you.
If you’re a business owner who’s interested in hiring a digital marketer to take on your next marketing campaign, then you’ve probably heard their fair share of sales pitches. From those who guarantee that they can deliver more quality traffic to your website to others who say that they can triple your leads, there’s no limit to the promises they attempt to make. Of all the things that they told you, they usually said the things they only want you to know. Somethings they simply won’t tell you, otherwise, they will look awfully bad. Here are a few hidden secrets that they might hide from you.
1. They outsource to freelancers
While you considered outsourcing your marketing work to some freelancers online, believe it or not, your project may be handled by that particular person but hired by your digital marketer. Freelancing is becoming the major trend, constituting 35 percent of U.S workforce in 2016. In Pakistan, freelancing is a billion dollar market.
When marketers take in too many projects and swarmed with deadlines to meet, they may opt to outsource some of your work to other professionals across the globe. Now you might be rethinking, you should just hire that particular person on Upwork. I for once had the privilege to meet an SEO agency who tried to muscle through an expensive SEO package to me. Coincidentally, a few weeks later I happened to meet an SEO freelancer who they outsourced their work too.
2. They ask their juniors to do the most work
If you ever started out looking for a marketing agency, you shouldn’t be surprised to meet with their senior managers. But, when it comes to work, they might dole large portions of your project out to their juniors. Well, this means that someone who has less experience could be working on your campaign. Sure, the senior manager might give a few instructions and the final say, but you still don’t receive the full benefit of years of experience.
I had the first-hand encounter with a marketing company based in California that seemingly had everything we wanted – experience and knowledge of our industry. During the first meeting, we only met with their finest managers who managed to convince us to choose them and obviously we did. But down the line, their output was far from what we expected because the person taking the load of the work were their junior staffs.
3. They do things you could learn to do in a day orlLess
It would surprise many business owners to learn that they don’t really need to a hire professional digital marketer for certain tasks. There are a lot of things that they can do on their own. Yes, SEO and other online campaign strategies require a certain amount of skills and knowledge, but some of these things can essentially be learned within a day or less. For example, building email lists, performing keyword research, and optimizing your website are all activities that have small learning curves. There are enough marketing courses that you could attend for a day to get enough hands-on skills to start your own digital marketing campaign.
4. Sometimes they act like just a middleman
The goal of digital marketing is to show the right ad or copy to the right audience and at the right time. Sometimes it’s all just copy and paste, receive and forward. They take the same work they did for their previous client and tweak it enough to fool you it would work for your case. If you are new to digital marketing, you might be suckered to believe whatever they tell you is best for your business. Not so, if you know how to look between the lines of each ad placement and design, and their respective click-thru rates. Digital marketing may look pretty straightforward but optimizing the results can be painstakingly difficult.
5. They are burning your money
Some marketers are actually interested in helping you get a return on your investment. They’ll only dip into your budget if it will increase your profits or attract new leads. However, there are some digital marketers who aren’t concerned about ROI at all. Instead, they’re more focused on their own short-term goals. These types of marketers will often burn through your budget by creating ads that are not fully optimized and produce worthless results, to say the least. I’ve heard of nightmare story where a marketer charged one dollar for a Twitter follower who is actually from India.
6. They would do a better job if your company is theirs
Ultimately, your business belongs to you, not your digital marketer. They only have so much interest in seeing your company succeed. Yes, the better your campaign does, the better your project will look in their portfolio. However, when it comes down to helping you achieve your long-term goals and doing what’s in the best interest of your company, very few marketers will care. In fact, very few of these marketers will give your business the same time and attention that they would give their own.
The Takeaway
The truth is, no matter who much your digital marketer shares with you, there are always a few things that they are going to leave out. So the key is to take your business into your hands. Instead of relying solely on external marketers to run your campaign, educate yourself about the world of online marketing.
