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Digital Marketing

Businesses Want Help With Digital Marketing

admin | Mar 30, 2013

We just wrapped up our first Internet Marketing Conference in Lancaster, PA addressing the topic of Internet Marketing for Local Businesses. Based on our audience feedback this invitation-only event was a huge success and we sold out in spite of the limited invitation list. It proved to me that business owners and leaders are “hungry” for insights and information about Internet marketing right now. They’re responsible for developing a marketing budget and strategy in an area where they’d like to feel more confident. Adding to this, Internet marketing is multifaceted and constantly changing. Business leaders want help.

Isn’t it ironic however that there has never been so much free information online about Internet marketing. But who has time to sort through it and where are the trusted resources? Organizations like Hubspot are encouraging businesses to position themselves as experts and be content generators as a way to earn that trusted “expert” position in people’s minds. The result of the popularization of that strategy is that thousands upon thousands of marketers are now pushing out content about digital marketing. Everyone is a social media consultant, even my 13 year old son who advises his mother. I recently read an industry survey which revealed that appropriately 1/3 of companies doing search engine optimization have done it for one year or less. And, the by-product of it is that many or most of these newbies are using the business strategy of “positioning themselves as experts” by generating content online.

Everyone has a first year. We did, and we too were “experts” our first day on the job. But first year experts and thousands of writers of mediocre content clogging the blogosphere aren’t the biggest problem for businesses seeking advice. It’s the “my solution” bias of the authors.

I first encountered this in the alternative health industry. Some Chiropractors were telling me that an adjustment would help cure my cold. Others wanted to extract toxins from my feet, ears, skin or unmentionable ways to cure whatever I had. Some homeopaths had disdain for that Advil I knew I needed. Everyone had their modality bias and  that’s why I couldn’t trust them for what would work for me. That’s what businesses are getting in the world of Internet marketing; lot’s of biased advice and not enough evidence-based, practical insights of how to leverage marketing budgets.

Businesses today more than ever are challenged with moving their marketing budgets into the direction from traditional to digital. These business decision-makers are seeking help from marketers with evidence-based insights that will provide practical guidance without personal bias. The world doesn’t need more content marketing. It needs more quality content that provides genuine help to the reader.