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The Pros And Cons Of DIY Digital Marketing

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Every business owner would, at one time or another, wish for their business to grow or expand. Those who have the talent and the skills can make it and succeed. If they do, they would need all the necessary tools, techniques and resources that could facilitate or accommodate this growth. Marketing, whether your business is online or offline, plays a major role in bringing your business success into fruition.

The only question remaining is whether you should perform digital marketing at your own accord and business resources, DIY style, or pass on the responsibility to a third-party digital marketing professional. As a business owner, you should first take a more in-depth look at all the pros and cons – before you make an informed decision.

The Pros of DIY Digital Marketing

Small business owners can gain a lot of business success through DIY digital marketing – if they, or someone from his/her company or organization – have the time, resources and the skills to perform these tasks themselves. They would however need to understand more about the intricacies of digital marketing and all the available tools they can use at their disposal – before they can reap all the benefits as outlined below.

  1. One of the primary reasons business owners go for the DIY route with their digital marketing programs is the money saved by doing the tasks themselves instead of paying external providers on a monthly basis – plus all other additional expenses incurred. You can even gain even more potential for revenues once you gain more targeted traffic by adding higher-level keywords to your marketing focus.
  1. However, you should also make sure if there is a profitable balance between the money you save from monthly bills and the additional expenses you may incur from performing digital marketing in-house. Your expenses may be more than the actual revenues you are getting – so all your marketing efforts may not be really worth it at all.
  1. 69% of B2B and 57% of B2C marketers highlighted “lack of time” as their toughest digital marketing challenge. This would make DIY digital marketing efforts not a viable option for these business owners and may do better outsourcing these services to an external provider. However, if you have the time and resources, you can gain all the advantages of performing digital marketing in-house and in DIY style.
  1. There’s no one or no other group more knowledgeable about the ins-and-outs, goals, and objectives of your business better than you or your team. This would make it easier for you and your team to facilitate digital marketing efforts as there would be no need to waste time and resources explaining to a third-party provider how your business work.
  1. A documented digital marketing strategy is used by 66% of content marketers who are effective in what they do. 86% of these digital marketers are led by a dedicated person or management team. Performing digital marketing in-house allows you to develop a similar strategy, allowing you to adapt well to new trends and keep up with the rigorous demands of the online market.
  1. Performing your digital marketing strategy DIY style will put you in complete control of all your digital marketing efforts. You will learn more about the intricacies of digital marketing, search engines, your website and your overall Internet marketing strategy by performing all the marketing activities yourself. If there are changes to be made, you need not wait for an external provider to take action as you or your team can perform these changes immediately.
  1. Your intimate knowledge of your business and niche industry will facilitate the faster formulation of digital marketing strategies streamlined for your brand, product or services. The process will be a lot faster than having a third party provider understand more about the ins and outs of your operations a before they can formulate a suitable digital marketing program that will work well with your business.
  1. Using the DIY approach to digital marketing, you can repurpose unused, less-efficient or under-utilized resources and even manpower to your in-house digital marketing program that will work well towards achieving your overall internet marketing objectives.
  1. With an in-house DIY digital marketing program, you need not hire outside personnel for your marketing campaigns. You can assign or hire existing manpower from within your organization, provide them with better challenges, increase their digital marketing skills, and increase employee retention.

The Cons of DIY Digital Marketing

At this point, you may have already digested and understood majority of the most important pros and advantages of DIY digital marketing. But just like any other marketing programs, there are disadvantages – the cons – to DIY digital marketing particularly if things failed to work out as expected. The possibility of experiencing these cons will be multiplied if you decided to take the short cut and resort to black hat or deceptive digital marketing strategies that will not prove beneficial for your business.

Before you proceed and finally decide on using the DIY approach to digital marketing, it would be to your greatest advantage to learn more about thecons. Due diligence in this regard will put things in proper perspective and will help you decide if pursuing a digital marketing program using a DIY approach will be best for your business or not.

  1. Up to 70% of B2B business owners have experienced gaps in the digital marketing skills of their employees. If you have the same situation in your business or organization, it will take you a considerably slower ramp up time and a steeper learning curve if you decide to form a new in-house digital marketing team from employees who do not have the skills nor the experience to perform the work well.
  1. If your company have already invested heavily in your marketing program, forming a new DIY digital marketing team will incur additional expenses for your business and may prove too costly in the long run. Experienced digital marketers spent years honing their skills in Internet marketing before they can get profitable results. If you have no digital marketing experts in your new DIY team, it will take you considerable time and resources before you can get any favorable results from your campaign.
  1. Digital marketing is a specialized field and if you do everything wrong, it will bring more damage to your business than good. Things could go wrong if you or your DIY team are not really proficient in digital marketing, just like what only 48% of digital marketers from a recent poll claimed. Another study from Adobe highlighted that only a third of responding businesses in the survey are proficient in digital marketing.
  1. Forming a DIY team from in-house resources who lack the proper training and understanding of digital marketing complexities may prove detrimental for your business. The possibility for such scenario is big considering the fact that 82% of digital marketers did not have any formal trainings in this regard of learning what they know now while on-the-job. Aside from that, 60% from these marketers actually believe that their current marketing program is inefficient.
  1. If you or your DIY team lack the experience required for an effective digital marketing program, your efforts may result in actions that may prove harmful to your online presence and Internet reputation. You or your team may not be familiar with all the complexities required in executing an effective digital marketing campaign – and end up performing activities that deliver no favorable results.
  1. The Internet is a very vibrant and dynamic marketplace that is constantly evolving with changes, enhancements and challenges for the digital marketer. You or your DIY digital marketing team may not have sufficient experience to handle these challenges when they come – which would be best left out handled by experienced experts in this field.

Conclusion

DIY digital marketing is loaded with all the marketing potential that would prove very beneficial for your business towards achieving its goals. But with all the pros comes the opposite face of this digital journey, showing you the cons and disadvantages of performing digital marketing on your own. The decision however, will eventually fall on you, as summarized by the following:

Perform DIY Digital Marketing:

  1. If you or your DIY team have the time and the skillset to perform all the necessary tasks required.
  2. If you have a strong background and understanding of Internet marketing skills.
  3. If it will take you faster to formulate digital marketing campaign programs better than service providers.
  4. If you or your team can sufficiently complete the project within a favorable timeframe.
  5. If your involvement in digital marketing will not take you away from your core business activities and priorities.

Outsource Digital Marketing:

  1. If you do not have the time or the resources to pursue the program without neglecting your core priorities.
  2. If you do not have sufficient digital marketing skills to perform the tasks required.
  3. If it will take you or your team a long time to develop the skills and learn the knowledge required for digital marketing.
  4. If it will bring more revenue for your business if you focus more on your core processes and priorities and leave marketing to others.

Images: “Young businessman holding a marker and drawing circular diagram of structure of digital marketing process and elements on transparent screen. Isolated on white background./ Shutterstock.com“

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