What You Get When You Hire a Professional Digital Marketer
Let me fill you in on an industry secret. We’re always undervalued. “Oh you’re way more expensive than I expected,” or, “I thought it would be half that,” are commonly heard. Sometimes followed by, “I’m just going to find a stay-at-how mum to do copy,” or “My daughter’s friend has heaps of followers, I’ll get her to do it,”. Firstly, why do you think a stay-at-home mum should do it for cheap? Secondly, if you trust a teen to be the voice of your brand, go for it. What’s the difference if you go to an agency? You get guaranteed results, accountability and reliability. Our team has talent, experience, strategies, contacts and exceptional knowledge. Sure, you can paint your own artwork, write your own novel or record your own album, but can you do it like a professional?
If our agency doesn’t do it for you, that's ok we are not everyone's flavour. But here’s the thing, there was a time when our industry was ‘new, unknown, foreign’ and many people were being thrown in who knew very little about it. I was one of those people.
I was in a job that flung me into the digital space and I had to learn on the fly and learn I did. I put hours upon hours into learning the art of digital marketing, not just while I was on the clock, but on every commute, all evening while I was meant to be unwinding and each morning with my coffee. I got coached by those more experienced than me. Went to conferences, events, workshops, online training, courses. I lived, ate and breathed it.
Soon I found myself working for some of the country's most successful companies, who were leading the way in the digital space. I ran the social accounts of the number one denim brand for engagement. A global killer beating out Levi’s, G-star, Guess, Gap and more.
Digital marketing might be new, but it ain’t that new. I’m in my tenth year of testing, trialling, failing, succeeding, learning, growing, learning some more, upskilling, employing, firing, employing again, upskilling some more, oh shit Facebook does a huge systems change, upskill all over again, bring in other experts to help with additional knowledge, working on hundreds of campaigns across a number of different industries.
I hire managers, ad experts, strategies, graphic designers, photographers, copywriters and videographers who also have years of experience and training. It takes a small village, plenty of drive and years of experience to strategise, create, perform and successfully manage social media campaigns.
Hours upon hours of work goes into creating beautiful imagery, days go into campaign setup and optimization, strategies take hours, reporting takes more hours. Look, it's a full-time job, one I love and do on behalf of so many amazing brands. It’s a responsibility I take very seriously, and do well because, not only do I know what I'm doing, but I know how to do it well and how to do it to make sure a business succeeds. Case in point, ROAS, Return on ad Spend for the uninitiated. When I have businesses hard-earned marketing money in my hands, I spend it wisely so they can continue to grow. When these ads aren’t monitored (by someone like me), problems always occur. The most common?
Billing failures occur which turn ads off immediately
Companies bleed money into audiences that are underperforming
Catalog feed errors happen: this is when products are pulling through from the website improperly or have been declined
iOS updates can mean a number of settings with ad accounts + audience creation needed to be reset, rebuilt or reworked to allow for iOS targeting
Lookalike or remarketing ad sets when low traffic volumes stay in the learning phase throughout the duration of the ad which sees limited data captured or limited reach if any at all.
Budgets are set too low or are so limited so they can’t reach the target.
Split audiences need to be monitored. Which decisions upon the end of the split test of the audiences continue to run, or you drop to the best performing audience. Often the platform will display a ‘winning’ audience, however when you dive into all the data the other audiences selected, what may have underperformed in other areas may have only just fallen short of being the winning audience. If you don't know how to read that data you may turn off the audience that should stay running, even if Facebook later tells you otherwise.
Not understanding all the different types of ads that can be run and how you can then split the ads in a number of different ways to drive results or get a certain outcome.
I have to be the voice, the visual and the online presence of a brand, and I need to do it in a way that breeds loyalty in their audience. One slip up and that could be of detriment to my client’s business that so much blood sweat and tears have gone into. It’s not a job to be taken lightly and sometimes spending that bit extra means you get to your end goal faster, your brand is accelerated online and you are represented online, just as you should be.
When you work with us, and many other digital marketing experts, you are in good hands, many hands in fact. We make sure all the right specialists are looking after your account and your business.