Digital Marketing is, and always has been, a tricky beast and comes with a huge variety of stresses and strains. It is an amazingly fun industry to be a part of, and here at Big Gun Digital we like to have a laugh at the right time, but this doesn’t mean we are not driven BONKERS sometimes! Whether you are an SEO agency trying to diagnose time-critical website issues, a social media marketer trying to fathom a new algorithm or a paid search executive looking at why a previously successful Adwords campaign randomly isn’t delivering, stress never seems too far away from us!
Big Gun Digital are a Google-Accredited SEO, Web Design, PPC, UX and Video Marketing Agency based in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire. Come and Speak to us TODAY!
Let’s have a look at the top 5 stressors we all face in 2018 (in no particular order!):
Grammar Errors
Picture the scene – the to-do list is building up and the boss isn’t happy. That Content Matrix isn’t going to write itself and you need to get the content out now. So you scramble and get some bits and bobs together and you are ready. The phone rings – you didn’t take PPI out so you hang up and carry on. You brand it and the campaign is good to go. Then you see it live on Twitter “How tot akle Technical SEO on a Low Budget”.
“Oh bother, I appear to have made a small grammatical error” are the words that obviously come out of your mouth. You will not be the first or the last. Email subject lines containing the words “oopsie”, “correction” or “update” for the bolder of you are very common.
It’s all good – just slow down and concentrate. Don’t pride yourself on being perfect all the time. It is ultimately a simple job to fix these types of errors and most people understand that you are human. That being said, professionalism means a lot so take it nice and slow. The time you save rushing will be lost when you have to correct it. Perhaps a tool such as Grammarly on your browser might help you in the future.
Limited Budgets
Having a low budget can be as problematic as having no budget at all. We’ve all had THAT campaign where you are told to deliver the world, in no time at all and with virtually no spend. Expectation is super-high and ability to spend is super-low!
But it’s important to remember that not everyone is gifted with massive advertising equity. Part of the joy of the industry is having the ability to work with all types of clients and on all budgets. The main piece of advice we can offer is to occasionally take a step back and take a moment to clarify REALISTIC expectations. Whether this is internally or externally with your clients.
No, we can’t predict the future, but yes we certainly can hope and work hard for the best. By making it known from the get-go what can actually happen with a specific budget range you’re avoiding extreme amounts of disappointment and stress.
Measuring Metrics
Measuring Metrics in and of itself is not particularly stressful. There are two ways that metrics can become very stressful – finding the RIGHT metrics and defining SUCCESS from these metrics.
If a Social Media campaign is run across multiple channels, what would we look to see? Impressions? Engagements? New Followers? If the goal of the campaign is to gain new followers then 384 new followers might be a great thing to see. But an engagement campaign values other metrics and therefore, things like new followers are mere vanity. Why can no campaign ever be simple, right? In our experience, a gap in expectations between the stakeholders can be to blame here and the solution is as above – clarify these expectations before the campaign kicks off.
The second part of this is ‘what constitutes a success’? Say you’ve put your heart and soul into a campaign ad, unfortunately, it hasn’t matched the goals set at the start. Is this a complete right off, then? Although you have missed the target, you have still gained valuable insight into the behaviours of your end users. You may have gleaned crucial information about keywords and shopping habits. Look for these little successes – they will help in the future.
Fingers in too many Pies!
Whether you work in house, at an agency or as a sole trader, we can bet all of our Christmas Party collection (so far a total of £4.91 and a couple of IOU’s) that you are currently wearing many different hats. You might be looking at SEO, PPC, UX, HTML, SMM, CM, SRM, SEM and all of the other letters in the alphabet on a daily basis for 30 clients or more. How do you manage this?
Zone in and truly focus on the task at hand. Chances are you will not achieve anything if you flap around and try to do too much. At Big Gun Digital, we use various tools to organise ourselves. Our Project Management tools are online, but also offline. We are not above using whiteboards, printouts and post-it notes in the name of getting the job done.
Google Updates
Oh… Google – thou art but a fickle mistress! Big Gun Digital is a Google-accredited SEO Agency. And as such, we pride ourselves on our relationship with them. But this doesn’t mean we have any more of a clue of what to do when they change their algorithms AGAIN!
Within the blink of an eye, a major change could have just happened and our websites or our client’s’ websites are affected by it. Most of the time they’re affecting negatively, too. So, yes Google, you do occasionally bring on the stress!
One of the best ways to deal with the Google stress is to stay on top of anything and everything that happens within the industry, just as Google does. Google takes note of things like user behaviour, cyber bugs, spam, and a handful of other web issues.
Take mobile for example. As we began to use our mobile devices like computers Google and other search engines took note. Defining a mobile experience that was different from desktop was becoming a more immediate need. Those who jumped on board and start making their websites responsive for mobile devices were able to get ahead of the curve before the word mobile was even thought to be paired with Armageddon!!
Big Gun Digital are a Google-Accredited SEO, Web Design, PPC, UX and Video Marketing Agency based in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire. Come and Speak to us TODAY!
So that’s our take on the situation! What do you think? Do you agree with this list? What causes you and your agency stress? Let us know in the comments….
Digital Marketers across the world try to pick apart the industry and break down it’s many stresses like this. Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet. Truthfully, there is a lot of good to go with these frustrations (saved for a future post!) and, to be honest, we feel like we are blessed to work in the best profession in the world! Hats off to Digital Marketers worldwide from Big Gun Digital – keep going but remember to take a moment to smell the coffee from time to time.
I’ll get the kettle on