If you’re a business owner, chances are you’ve dabbled in the idea of doing your own marketing instead of hiring a professional. In fact, you may have done more than just dabble—you may be in the thick of it, trying to optimize PPC campaigns and manage social media accounts and figure out what SEO is all at once. (Did anyone else get tired just reading that sentence? Shew.)
While it’s tempting to think you can save money by handling your marketing efforts on your own, the truth is that you’re far more likely to waste money than save it—and that doesn’t even take into account the time and energy you may be wasting by trying to figure everything out yourself.
Let’s talk about why doing your own digital marketing probably isn’t the best choice, and why working with an agency is likely to get far better results.
#1: No One Can Be an Expert at Every Part of Digital Marketing
At its core, digital marketing includes the following components:
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Graphic design
- Digital advertising
- Search engine optimization
- The ability to interpret analytics
- Technical troubleshooting
- CMS expertise
This means that in order to do all of this yourself, you would need to be an expert writer with an eye for design and a thorough training in all Adobe products, who also understands the many layers of SEO best practices, can manage campaigns for display and search advertising, knows how to install a pixel and use a tag manager, keeps up with all the changes to Meta/Google/every other social media platform and search engine out there, understands how to track campaigns and then read and analyze analytics, and can handle the technical work in the backend of their website that makes all of the above efforts worth the trouble.
If this describes you, please apply to our company immediately because we have never met anyone who was truly skilled at all of these things.
In our experience, no individual person can handle all components of an effective marketing strategy on their own. The demand on their time and energy to learn all of these things and become proficient enough to actually do them just isn’t realistic—and it quickly leads to frustration and burnout.
#2: It’s Easy to Waste Money on a Bad Digital Marketing Strategy
Because it’s nearly impossible to be an expert on every part of digital marketing, and because digital marketing is about a million percent more complex than most people think it is, you can easily pour a whole lot of money right down the proverbial drain.
Effectively running a PPC (Google pay-per-click) campaign alone requires a high level of understanding about audience building, budget management, and campaign optimization—and if you’re not familiar with how all this works, you could throw big bucks at Google without getting any real return. Talk about a punch to the gut.
Moving into the SEO arena, there are so many factors for optimization to consider that we can’t even begin to fit it all in one blog. From on-site optimization to backend technical optimization to Google Schema and backlinks—plus all the other things beyond this list—SEO is such a beast, most people can’t do even this one service by themselves. Uptick, for example, has a team of 6 SEO experts who all specialize in a different element of optimization. So trying to figure all this out on your own, while it’s not likely to cost you a lot of money directly, can result in lost income due to poor optimization techniques.
#3: You Probably Don’t Have Time for All of This
Running a business isn’t exactly a piece of cake. If you’re like most business owners, you’re already strapped for time, dealing with high levels of stress, and trying to have some kind of personal life outside of work. You probably don’t have time to do any of this, much less all of it.
Can you imagine leaving a long day at your company, only to come home and try to figure out your Google Business Profile setup? Or sifting through Facebook comments to leave replies? Or writing a 700-word blog article after the kids are in bed? Yeah… no.
Work with a Digital Marketing Agency for Less Stress and Better Results
Here at Uptick, we understand the stress you’re under as a business owner. We have an entire team of 40+ people who all specialize in a specific area of digital marketing, and we’ll give you full transparency with everything we do so that you’re in the loop, but not having to steer the ship.
Contact us today to set up a free fact-finding meeting—we’d love to help your business succeed.
