It’s an unbelievable feeling when you build your own company and hear people speaking about your brand.
You think: My digital marketing team was actually right.
Then you think: I should do 50 times more digital marketing.
Well… not necessarily.
I had the chance to chat with Adam Smith, Founder and Director at Damteq, about why marketing isn’t one-size-fits-all.
Adam should know. In 2006 when he created Damteq, he was entering a space where there were literally hundreds of marketing and website design companies starting up. So, he spotted a gap in the market where creating organizations focused on customer experience and business growth was far better than just creating another web design agency.
“Our whole mission is based around creating a unique experience for our clients and strategically delivering campaigns on scaling much smarter and better,” Adam said.
Unique is the keyword there.
If marketing comes in a package, it probably isn’t right for you.
The sales and marketing approach needs to become more humanized.
Adam Smith – Founder and Director at Damteq
Knowing What’s Right for Your Brand
Considering the many shifts in social media, SEO, inbound marketing strategy, and digital advertising, most companies try to follow the flow and keep up with digital trends.
But they often fail because they are just following what everyone else is doing.
“Businesses seem to just try anything and everything rather than being strategic about what would work for them,” Adam said.
Adam suggested what a company should keep in mind before they invest in a new digital marketing strategy.
- Outline your future goals.
- Think about your most successful customers.
“Ultimately that information and that company historic data will truly help you understand where your actual audience and targeting of your marketing needs to be,” Adam said.
Once you define the actual audience you need to reach, this will help your marketing activities reach the right audience who has the intent to purchase your products and services.
Test different strategies and campaign models to see what works best for you.
“I’m a firm believer in focusing your marketing efforts on campaigns that will grow your business rather than wasting time, effort and resources on opportunities that aren’t going to work,” Adam said.
The golden rule?
“Don’t get disheartened about if some strategies don’t go as well as planned,” Adam said. “At the end of the day, marketing is progressive.”
Don’t get disheartened about if some strategies don’t go as well as planned, at the end of the day, marketing is progressive.
Adam Smith – Founder and Director at Damteq
Product, End User, or Both?
Both.
When it comes to what should define your marketing strategy, it can be hard to know how to balance between the product and the end user.
Align everything–products, marketing, historic data, future trends.
“The whole thing should be its own engine and move forward positively into generating more revenue for businesses,” Adam said.
Don’t get distracted, either, by likes or clicks. Maybe you got 10,000 likes, but how many deals did you actually close that day?
With marketing labs, deciding to stop or deciding to double is tricky.
KPIs to look at to make decisions what’s working and what’s not:
Leads.
Deals.
The end.
What doesn’t make the list? Empty numbers like followers or likes.
“If you don’t get the engagement, you’re wasting resources on a task that is just a vanity figure,” Adam said.
Knowing when to double or when to quit is a matter of qualifying your leads and having a progressive strategy.
“We always put metrics in place to understand the data monthly, quarterly and annually,” Adam said.
Sometimes you have to sit back and let a digital marketing strategy run its course. “There is a long term benefit to that, and it isn’t necessarily about getting short term leads every single month straight away,” Adam said.
Balancing short-term with the big picture can be difficult but necessary.
Businesses seem to just try anything and everything rather than being strategic about what would work for them.
Adam Smith – Founder and Director at Damteq
Future Trends in Digital Marketing
Everyone uses the internet differently.
Differently from each other and differently from how we all used it even a few years ago.
Digital marketing is constantly evolving. “We’re seeing a huge trend at the moment around conversational marketing,” Adam said.
People don’t want to be sold to. They want to feel special (and they don’t want to wait for anything).
“Businesses need to function as a marketing company, but the sales and marketing approach needs to become more humanized,” Adam said.
He predicted this humanizing trend for the next three to five years.
One thing that would help?
“We need to learn how to add more value to customers and prospects,” he said.
Digital marketing doesn’t stay still, and neither should businesses.
“Every business should learn how to think outside the box, go the extra mile, and make their marketing more personal and human centric,” Adam said.
Get in touch with Adam about this topic on his LinkedIn or the Damteq website.
This post is based on a B2B Revenue Acceleration podcast with Adam Smith. To hear this episode and many more like it, subscribe here.
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