Have you started planning for your marketing in 2023 yet? I hope so, since it’s right around the corner.  And, by some accounts, 2023 is going to be a more difficult year for small and medium businesses than 2020, 2021, or 2022. There are predictions of a recession, ongoing inflation, and interest rate hikes that may extend well into next year.

We don’t know what will happen, but given all these possibilities the value of digital marketing – which tends to provide the best ROI for most companies – cannot be understated. Combining the right digital marketing tactics can lead to greater scalability for many companies. Are you happy with your results?

Here are some quick facts about digital marketing:

👉 Most companies use some combination of social media, email marketing, blogging, search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

👉 These produce moderate results for many, great results for a few, and disappointing results for others.

👉 Some companies get better results than others, even those in the same industry and using the same platforms.

👉 There are other methods that many don’t think about, but which may be more successful than the ones most companies are using.

👉 If you were using the right mix of digital marketing tactics, your business might be scaling faster.

👉 The wrong combination can hold your growth back.

👉 Budget is the main reason a company is not using other digital marketing tactics.

If I asked you which digital marketing methods are most effective, what would you say? Are those the ones you are using? How are you measuring the results?

When most business leaders are unhappy with their digital marketing results, they look to things like messaging, ad format, impressions, clicks, and budget. These are all good ways to review the campaigns you are using, but they may do little to improve your results. A critical, but frequently overlooked, parameter is whether your targeting is accurate.

If your targeting is off – or you have not updated your concept of the “ideal buyer” for your company since 2019 – your message is likely falling on deaf ears. That’s because the behavior of buyers in nearly every market has changed since the pandemic. Priorities have changed, budgets have changed, and I could continue listing changes all day.

Some segments changed more than others, but I have not yet found one buyer avatar that I’ve reviewed which has not had some change, however minor that may have been. And I’ve reviewed a lot of them. If you have not reviewed yours, please do. It might save you a lot of time figuring things out.

Once you have done that, look at how your demand generation is working. If the last sentence is the first time you’ve heard about or considered the role of demand generation in your advertising campaigns, you’ve probably been leaving a lot of opportunities on the table. Leads don’t happen if there is no demand.

I will be discussing demand generation in a future blog, but if you want to know more about it sooner, set up a complimentary 30-minute conversation with me (here is my calendar link for that: https://bit.ly/3hlCgaS). I also share insights like these through my email list, which you can sign up for. Don’t worry, I don’t sell anyone’s information and I will respect your inbox. I dislike irrelevant content as much as anyone.