Let me share a secret with you, I never wanted to go into Digital Marketing.
I hated it at Uni, but mostly because it was such a new thing, theory was still being proposed and torn down, and social was only starting to be a “thing”. Times have changed. And now, I love it.
The best thing about digital marketing is the benefits are there for all to see – literally.
Digital Marketing allows you more power than ever before to see if what you’re doing to promote whatever it is you sell/provide and analyse what works best for you.
A bit about you?
I joined Shorthose Russell at the end of February 2015 with a junior level of experience within the Digital Marketing industry, dabbling with a little bit of SEO – but mostly overseeing web builds.
However, I wanted to get to the nuts and bolts of making things happen for clients and being able to particularly in terms of Paid Advertising – and that’s exactly what I’ve been able to do in my time at Shorthose Russell.
What have you learned?
Google is God
It’s amazing how much one company can help shape the world around you. It’s probably trendier to praise Apple, but Google deserve just as much if not more credit. They go above and beyond to make sure they deliver what the user wants. They’ve mapped most of the planet and the solar system, they’re making cars as well. As long as they don’t make an army we’re fine.
Convenience is the King
We’re all rushed off our feet. The world has changed so much from when I finished high school some 9 years ago. Thanks to Google and Apple we can get information anywhere we want (apart from rural Norfolk, no chance of signal there). This access and lack of time means the people who give you the answer you need in the quickest amount of time will be the biggest winners.
Knowledge is power
The more I learn, either about PPC, web design and development or anything else we do here at Shorthose Russell, the more I feel empowered and confident. It’s great. The breadth of knowledge at Shorthose Russell is huge, I’m not going to count the years of experience here, but it’s safe to say there’s a lot.
Get your hands dirty
The only way you properly learn is through doing, you can read all you like but putting it into context. Throw yourself into situations, but exercise caution.
The importance of good design
There’s so much to stimulate your senses on the internet, that functional design has become one of the most important parts of a site or a process, yes – things might look pretty but they need to work together to make sure people are able to use sites too.
An integrated strategy makes things much easier
It may sound counter-intuitive, but putting in the extra effort to create and adapt strategies to work across multiple platforms and disciplines makes analysis much easier when you can – customers expect consistency and integrated campaigns offer a more realistic picture than single campaigns dotted all over the place.
Set goals for everything
With all this extra data, it’s easy to get bogged down investigating relationships, but if it’s not contributing to the goals you’re working to, it’s something to take a note of and investigate later.
It’s all too easy to spin statistics in a positive manner, so making sure you’re doing exactly what you set out to do is a ridiculously simple, but often missed step.
If I ever fancy a career change I’ll become a Chef
With seemingly little effort I end up producing lunches that make many-a-colleague ‘well-jel’. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.
What’s next?
Less noise more focus
Digital Marketing is all about giving people what they want, as quickly and as easily-digestible as possible. People are already starting to get wise to ridiculous click-bait articles. They work at the moment but they won’t always, because convenience is king.
More information , same amount of time
The amount of information we’ll get from new technologies and methods of digital marketing is only going to increase. This makes it important to focus on the statistics that matter, and it won’t be an easy job.
Reappraising everything for the internet
We’re really only starting to become a digital-first world.
I can see the way we use language changing; you miss out on so much by just reading words on the page, missing body language, subtlety and inferences that all make up the way humans communicate.
Also, the way we read is changing too – the internet does not favour text-heavy, essay length paragraphs, it breaks up the flow of the words.
