As a digital marketing agency, we get a lot of entrepreneurs asking, “Is digital marketing hard?” As much as we would like to be specific on the answer, we can’t. That’s because the answer is: it depends.
Depending on the niche, sometimes digital marketing feels easy and natural, especially when marketing something essential, trendy, or in-demand (plus without competition). However, if you’re in a super competitive industry, marketing can feel like an impossible task, especially if you’re doing things yourself.
But we’re not going to leave you with just that. Here, we’ve compiled some of our case studies to give you a breakdown of what we did to market our clients’ businesses. With this breakdown, along with the processes involved, you can finally answer, “is digital marketing hard?”.
Is Digital Marketing Hard? Answering With Data
Paradiso Restaurant and Pizzeria
This restaurant is one of the best for authentic Italian dishes — from pizzas to pasta. They have several awards to back that up, but they’ve been on a steady decline since 2016. The reason? Technology is a bit too fast for them!
Their website is outdated, and the owners are not tech-savvy. This combination meant a poor trust score due to their site’s appearance. They are losing new customers to their competitors with modern websites that can take online orders.
Our core solutions:
- Web design and development
- Online ordering system integration
- Social media marketing
The outcome:
- Increased impressions 84%
- Increased online orders 143%
- Increased conversions 129%
- Increase phone orders 124%
Well Health Works
Here is an on-site healthcare company with over 65 years of exceptional service in helping businesses improve their employee health and engagement rate. This company is, hands down, established!
The only problem is that Well Health Works has never given any attention to improving its website. They settled for a single-page website that cramped all their intricate services, discouraging search engines from ranking them for any keywords. As a result, they were losing prospects to their competitors that spent more time on their online presence.
Our core solutions:
- Website overhaul
- Content strategy and creation
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO (link building)
- SEM (search engine marketing)
The outcome
- Increased web visitors 109%
- Increased social media engagement 62%
Mario’s Barber Hair Salon
Next on our list is Mario’s Barber Hair Salon. This business has been cutting hair and making men handsome since 1978. The problem: no website! In this day and age, that’s the worst mistake a service business can make.
Mario’s Barber Hair Salon also did not have the technology set up to accept anything other than cash. Plus, they have no receptionist. With almost zero digital marketing efforts, this project was objectively hard.
Our core solutions:
- Industry research
- Web design and development
- Local SEO
- SEM
- Online appointment integration
- Social media marketing (establishing official profiles)
- Credit and debit card payment integration
The outcome:
- Made it to Yelp’s Top 10
- Increased customers 40%
- Increased sales 82%
Garden Grocer
When a grocery store’s revenue relies heavily on tourists, facing the pandemic can feel synonymous with closing for good. Apart from that, they also had a very antiquated website. This is Garden Grocer’s story.
Our core solutions:
- Strategy rework
- Added new pages to their website
- Advertised new services (paid media)
- Social media marketing
The outcome:
- Increased conversions 89%
- Increased impressions 758%
- Increased new customers 214%
DigiCard
This company is the essence of innovation. It faced the pandemic like a boss by providing valuable social distancing solutions in building real-world connections through digital business cards. However, here’s the problem. The technology is so new, and people are not comfortable with it yet.
Our core solutions:
- Web design and development
- Branding strategy
- SEO
- Social media marketing
The outcome:
- Increased sales 109%
- Increased social media engagement 39%
- Decreased ad spending 42%
Cafe Gianni
Another Italian restaurant is Cafe Gianni. They offer classic dishes that the locals of Mount Dora, Florida, enjoy. The problem? They completely ignored the power of an online presence. Unfortunately, they did not have a website at all and despite having a social media profile, it wasn’t actively being used. So, prior to coming on board, the only customers they ever had were passersby and patrons.
Our core solutions:
- Web design and development
- Local SEO (search engine optimization)
- Product optimization
- eGift Cards
- Social media marketing
The outcome:
- Wine dinners and cooking classes sell out 100%
- Increased social reach 98%
- Increased page likes 92%
- Increased catering and large party bookings 82.5%
- Additional revenue from online orders 36.9%
Storm Roofers and Bug No More
Both of these home-services businesses relied heavily on traditional marketing. Neither of them had a website or a social media presence. What they had were local trust and a decent word-of-mouth reputation. However, they slowly saw their business decline as their competitors took advantage of their absence in the online space.
Our core solutions:
- Web design and development
- Paid media
- Local SEO
- Social media marketing
- Appointment setting integration
The outcome (Storm Roofers and Bug No More, respectively):
- Increased sales 189% | 42%
- Increased phone inquiries 345% | 104%
- Increased social reach 64% | 60%
What Makes Digital Marketing Hard?
Web Design and Development
This service is the bread and butter of almost any digital marketing agency. To bring any business online, it has to have its permanent mark on the internet where they have complete control of what they want to put out to the public. Unlike using social platforms with their rules and limitations, a business can do whatever they want on its website. To build a website, you will need coding skills: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These are but the mere basics.
Website Rework
If you want to update your website, migrate to a different hosting service, redesign, or add new features, you will still need the coding skills mentioned above. The only thing that makes this more intricate is that every website is unique, not just in appearance but how it’s built. To successfully revamp a website, you need experience and familiarity with all the site-building software and its versions available in retrospect.
Branding
To market anything successfully in the long run, you will need branding skills. Becoming familiar with marketing psychology and how visuals and messaging work is equally important. Branding isn’t just repeating the same color and design; it’s about how you use them and why they’re the right fit for your business.
System/Technology Integration
Similar to website development, you need coding, programming, and other technical skills to perform it. Moreover, you need to be familiar with the specific technology to ensure it works on the platform you need to use (not just websites). In some cases, you may even have to build it yourself, which requires a deeper understanding of the project and mastery of computer programming languages.
Social Media Marketing
When used as a personal medium, social media doesn’t seem like a lot of work. But when you’re using it to run a business, things can go drastically different as new tools, dashboards, and rules arise. Getting yourself proficient with these takes months or even years. Not to mention that there are a plethora of social platforms available, and knowing which ones to include as part of your marketing efforts is another challenge you have to face.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is another technical marketing solution. To simplify: it’s the practice of ranking any material on SERPs (search engine results pages). Whether your website, a specific page, or even your social profile, SEO is the process that allows you to rank effectively and gain organic traffic. The thing that makes this solution tricky is that it’s a combination of everything — from clean coding and website URL structuring to design and content creation.
We haven’t even mentioned the other things, like content creation, graphic design, copywriting, video editing, strategy development, and many more. However, the point we are trying to make is that digital marketing requires numerous things to work successfully.
Final Words
Is digital marketing hard? If you want to market your business in all aspects, it can be highly demanding. Plus, it requires a lot of analytical skills to pull off effectively. You will have to work with more people and learn more skills. This demand, which is constantly growing due to competition and innovation, makes digital marketing hard when done without any help.
If you want to stay away from all this technical stuff and make your business discoverable, you can rely on a digital marketing agency. That’s why we’re here. At Tulumi Digital Marketing, we can provide you with all the solutions mentioned above. Plus, with our team of experts working together, we can remove the demand and hard work put on you and assure your digital marketing is done easily, effectively, and worth the investment.
