Perceive the Pattern - My challenges in digital marketing

Photo by Federico Beccari on Unsplash

Test subject: Social Media

Experiment #: 1

There I was, at the end of the year 2017. Fresh with knowledge on how to do digital marketing. The experience of tried and tested campaigns, with an equal mix of success and failure. Yet there was something lacking.

That elusive, singular goal that I was still chasing.

I had defined it several times in the past with objectives and plans of action and yet fell short somehow. I was refusing to accept the shortcoming, be it co-operation or budgets, and kept pushing on to no avail.

Then it dawned on me. If we keep doing things the way we always have, we will get what we already have. It was time for a change.

And the best place to start was my approach and outlook. My first change was to note down the problems and challenges and accept them.

So I started with social media, Facebook to be exact and I had to deal with the following challenges:

Lack of sufficient resources

Budgets, time and talent. This challenge is only compounded when all three are insufficient. And make no mistake, having an excess of the three is also a challenge.

For all the deficiencies in the resources, this remains the single largest challenge to conquer.

Overwhelming competition

It has never been more challenging to create space for yourself in the crowded arena of social media.

New content, ads, communication & products launched daily, it is difficult to make a niche and maintain it.

With the presence of competitors, both big and small, this can be very overwhelming.

Maintaining consistency

Pre-planning, rediscovering new USPs, retelling stories, matching the thought or idea with the right image and words, finding the right hashtag, the to & fro dance of approvals between the agency and the client - YEESH!

“I easily maintain my schedule of producing and sharing quality content,” said no marketing manager ever.

The presence of paid promotions

It is a common tale where the giants spend more and capture the limited attention span of the target audiences. Organic can help but it is limited thanks to algorithm changes and what not.

The share of my pie is stolen by the paid promotions of my competitors.

Unrealistic expectations

It is not uncommon to underestimate, or as most often is the case, overestimate oneself. Seeing or even understanding that there is a boundary line is difficult.

Expecting overnight results is a rarity in this field. So is patience.

Running out of ideas

Creative block, writer’s block, blogger’s block…..Just blocked. Inspiration is not easy to come by.

And it's expected, that we punctually churn out new, different, out-of-the-box, disruptive ideas.

Measuring up

And I am yet to come across the perfect reporting system that will measure my efforts and throw up the results in a simple understandable and comprehensible way. It would be nice if I could get relevant, non-generic insights too.

My brain had turned to soup!

I realized that it was not the lack of experience, expertise or information that was the problem. They were, in fact, the raw materials. It was the lack of structure of these raw materials that was lacking. Once I defined the role of each aspect and gave them a shape, all problems and challenges didn’t seem daunting at all.

This was my ‘Neo’ moment from The Matrix.

Time to set the goal and make the plan.