Should you do your own online marketing?

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Should you handle your own online marketing? It’s a simple question, but there are many variables to be considered for the answer.

Fair enough, many small businesses just starting out cannot afford to outsource. For others, it makes more financial sense to do it in-house.

For some businesses it will work, and for some it won’t. Knowing which group you fall into is crucial. It can make the difference between your business making it, or not.

So…

Should you do your own online marketing?

 

Here are the factors to consider:

1. Your marketing budget.

If you want to outsource, but you have no marketing budget, then it is obvious. However, if you have just a little money to work with…

a. What you pay for is what you get. We have seen “marketing agencies” out there who offer services for ridiculously low monthly fees. But they also do very little, leaving you with no results.

b. Getting online marketing up to speed takes time – even if you do paid advertising, which requires time to test and perfect. If you only have a small amount of money to spend, once off, don’t.

If you are starting from scratch, expect to spend money consistently for anything from 3 to 6 months before you start seeing real results.

2. Your in-house marketing skill set.

Many small business owners think that “young people are clued up on social media”, so they should be good with it. That one could be risky.

If you are marketing specifically to people in that age group, it might work. They would know the audience and know what would resonate with them. However, if you are marketing to an audience outside of their frame of reference, they can get stuck.

If you want to do it yourself, you have to consider how much – or how little – you actually know about marketing on the internet. Go and do a bit of research, and see if you really know as much as you think you do.

Aside from understanding your target market, you will need to know what types of content work on which platforms, how to create it, and when and where to post it.

In addition to that, if you want to run a blog, you will need some knowledge of search engine optimization – to improve the visibility of your articles in Google.

Side note:

More people are searching using voice and artificial intelligence (AI). At this point AI doesn’t understand intent. Search engines are set now to where intent matters. To those searching intent matters so you have to meet them where they are.

3. Using AI to do your marketing…

AI can do a lot, but it has its limitations.

On the one hand it is still evolving, even though it does so remarkably fast. On the other hand, however, is your ability to ask the right questions. The responses and results you get will depend on the quality of the questions or prompts you put into your chosen AI.

Once again, this comes back to having at lease SOME understanding of the tools you work with, and what you need to work towards.

AI at this point is just a tool. It can and does help with marketing however shouldn’t be counted upon as the only tool in your marketing arsenal. There are areas where it does excel. Our readers should understand this as well.

As a company we have tried AI, and found it lacking when looking at the overall marketing picture. After all, your ideal customers are human. AI is artificial intelligence. We would hope as a company owner you possess real intelligence. You cannot position your company as the best solution or the only real solution to your ideal customer using only AI.

4. The available time to do marketing.

There was a time when you could put out an ad, and expect results. Sadly, that time ended long ago. Today, the internet is crowded and competitive.

Aside from knowing what you are doing, consistency is key. Fair enough, not all niches require you to post content every day. And if you market on Youtube, you can put out a video once a week – as long as it contains value.

Aside from getting more exposure from the social networks for posting consistently, you also need to remember that consistency builds trust – which is critical for growing your brand. If you don’t “show up” when your audience expects you to, some people will classify you as being unreliable.

Aside from that, almost all social media platforms reward users for being active on the platform, by showing their content to more people.

You can do that in small amounts, but it has to happen at fairly regular intervals.

If you treat your online marketing as an afterthought, you shouldn’t do it yourself. Whether it means that it always moves to the bottom of your to-do list, or whether the person tasked with marketing keeps receiving “more important” tasks which disrupt their efforts.

5. The level of competition.

In some niches, fierce competition means you have to compete with not only high quality content, but advanced marketing tactics and strategies.

If you are not able to find a way to position yourself in such a way that you don’t have to compete with them, you will need to produce content – and “play the game” at a level which is at least worthy of being seen alongside the mainstream content.

In conclusion:

While outsourcing your online marketing comes with its own set of pitfalls, doing it yourself comes with not only pitfalls, but also a set of requirements:

Skills.

Knowledge.

Insight.

TIME.

Skills, knowledge and insight can be learned.

If you fail to learn at least the basics of what you need to know, don’t expect any miracles.

As for time…

If you don’t prioritize the time – whether it is your own or that of a person designated to execute marketing tasks – you will be fighting a losing battle.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that is the brutal reality.

If you want your online marketing to succeed, make it your priority – in all respects. Otherwise, pay someone else to make it their priority.

Anything else is likely to be unproductive.