It is as cool to call yourself a digital marketer as it was cool to call yourself a coder in the early 2010s. There are thousands of individuals and companies vying for a piece of the pie but everybody knows that the majority doesn't know jack.
You consider yourself a tad better than the rest because you chanced upon a "growth hacking" article that taught you how to use bots to automate sending IMs to people on social media. So your conversion rate is still low but you're doing a tad better than the deluge of me-too-marketers.
So, what exactly is digital marketing?
Thanks to the buzz around the word, the true meaning of the phrase has been lost in the haze of revising and re-revising your marketing funnel, and then revising it some more. The story seems repetitive, but so is the task that you do.
Answer me honestly, how many times have you changed the position of your CTA button on your website? People aren't stupid. If they like your product, the position of the CTA from left-aligned to centre-aligned will not make any difference. Just do not hide it behind a web of unlinked pages.
What if I were to tell you that you have got it all wrong? What if I were to tell you that outbound marketing is more effective than inbound marketing?
I know what you're going to say. You'll google links from famous websites like HubSpot, or another, such as this, and be like, SEE..SEE.
Hear me out, you're not a HubSpot. You're a you, reading an article titled 'Digital Marketing:101'. The reason why your inbound marketing tactics do not work is the same reason why copying Backlinko's SEO tactics failed to bring mad traffic to your website.
It's the brand that sells after hitting a critical mass. You're probably not a world renowned brand…yet, and that is why, you must turn up in your suits and ties.
Credits: MDC Dot
Go for broke on outbound marketing. It really works.
Outbound marketing allows you to create personal relationships with prospective clients (at the cost of personal relationships with your family). It allows you to learn to pitch correctly. If a prospect doesn't get closed after showing interest, you got to work on your sales pitch.
If a bank is not interested in your website security solution, you got to work on your hook. It is all about creating relationships and connections in the world of sales.
Mark Zuckerberg got Sean Parker onboard before he decided to turn up like a hobo for a meeting (at least according to the movie).
Outbound marketing has a personal touch where you interact directly with your prospects instead of reducing them to cold and lifeless DeviceIDs. You can study their faces, adapt according to the need of the hour, and offer discounts and freebies on-the-fly.
Can inbound marketing do that? Or any of the above?
People crave attention. It is the reason why we go gaga over 'Likes' and 'Double Taps' on social media.
People also do not like to reach out to the other person to seek help. People hate people but want to be loved. Read it, remember it, and recite it to yourself every instance you find yourself facing a lot of people.
The problems with inbound marketing are many.
They were invented to help those who were getting bombarded by more enquiries that they could handle. Take Apple for instance. It is a huge company. It needs inbound marketing to handle the sheer number of prospects that throng apple.com.
Statistics are number-crunching tools. You cannot do statistics without getting the numbers first. Till then, do what Steve Jobs did. Put yourself in a turtle-neck and reach out to your prospects instead of waiting for them to reach out to you.
Conclusion
When I used to write code, I used to be a huge fan of Nikola Tesla, Steve Wozniak, et al. Ever since I became a marketer, my new gods are Steve Jobs, Thomas Alva Edison, and Kanye West.