Part II: Identifying and Setting Realistic Expectations
One reason we are penning this series at the beginning of the year is to help you better understand what it is exactly you are buying when you commit to a relationship with a digital marketing agency.
In our last article, we touched on how you should budget your marketing dollars. Cost aside, the reason you engage in digital marketing in the first place is for results. And the first step in getting the best results is setting realistic expectations.
Results can be tricky with SEO, as success is measured in many ways. By optimizing your site, we help you see gains in statistics such as conversion rate, bounce rate, page views, unique visitors, etc. We are thrilled when we look at a yearly, quarterly or even monthly spreadsheet and see that these numbers are improving. This means the tweaks we are making are working! Combine that with increased social media activity and frequent content updates through blogging, we then see a successful organic marketing campaign in action. We confidently set these expectations at the beginning of any consultation or partnership.
What we don’t do is set an expectation that we will help with company sales.
With sales, there are many variables that go into success. We can build you an online store and make sure your site is driving as much traffic as possible, but we cannot translate traffic into a sale. As much as an digital marketing agency can promise increase in sales, it’s simply not true. All we can promise is a perfect site designed to maximize eyes and leads. Converting those into dollars is entirely up to you. We do offer call and lead tracking technology to give you information on your sales team, if desired. But, as the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.
Now, digital marketing and SEO are not rooted in instant results. Nor is it an exact science. The numbers we generate don’t reflect good or bad until after a long period of time. So, the key is to be patient when achieving your SEO goals. We make it very clear that the most successful organic marketing campaigns are ones that take months or years, not weeks or days. Gains are made incrementally. The most fruitful companies are the ones who put in consistent effort, thus laying a strong online foundation. Our happiest partners have seen the long-term success of our programs. They’ve learned that sticking with our strategy proves better results in time.
We are not in the business of setting unrealistic expectations. We want you to succeed not just in the short term. We promise to build you into an online force for the future. Any SEO or marketing firm that promises to build you Rome in a day is flat-out lying to you. Nothing happens instantaneously in this industry. It’s just like fishing — if you cast your line for fifteen minutes and are frustrated when nothing bites, it’s not your pole’s fault. But when you take it slow and wait, you’ll be much happier with the results.
Thanks for reading and be sure to contact us at SteerPoint for your budgeting or marketing questions in 2016!