Falling for the Numbers Game

     So I went to this great burger joint in Zalka, owned by a friend of mine from high school. I always had in mind to visit her cozy little joint, which had a façade open to the street. I kind of liked that about her place; and her burgers turned out to be very good also.

     Naturally, I went into a conversation with her to reminisce, partly to keep my mind off my order. She told me that she had hired a new digital marketing agency, which promised at least 3 social-media posts per week, and their price was practically a giveaway. At that time, I slammed on the brakes from giving her further marketing advice out of fear of sounding too needy or jealous that she didn’t give me the business, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit queasy on account of the acids building-up in my stomach. It wasn’t because of the burger; I hadn’t eaten it yet. It was that during my career as a digital marketer, I had developed a very hard allergy to the quantitative post expectations of my industry. After a few weeks, I checked her Facebook page a couple of times to see the results of her campaign. I wasn’t surprised with what I saw, but I was still heartbroken.

​The problem is, it is agencies like ours, who are specialized in digital marketing, that are causing such disenchantment among the clients. Sure, we all know how big social media is, we have all seen or heard about the magnificent success stories of small firms rising above the stars all thanks to the power of digital marketing. But when it comes to the average you, a post will get you three likes, and half of them are from your mother!

     It is a well-established fact that three posts a week of non-engaging content will do you more harm than good. Facebook is in the business of keeping its two billion users on its platform for as long as possible. Its algorithm is designed to bump off non-engaging content to keep its users from getting bored and logging off. If Facebook’s algorithm decides that your content is mostly non-engaging, or in other words ‘boring’, it will show your content less and less to others. Simple as that! Eventually your page will end up as the countless online deserts that no one ever visits. Digital marketers know this very well, so why do they keep on leading their clients down such a destructive path?

     I’ve been a sales marketer all my grown-up life. I know how intimidating a seasoned client can be to a fresh soldier. But letting a client intimidate you into submitting to a numbers game will do him harm, and once he sees the terrible result, he will wrap it around your neck and blame you for it. Never concede to a numbers game in digital marketing. It is not the quantity but the quality that matters. Valuable content marketing is the key to this entire game. Do not let anyone tell you to simply shoot an ad and post it on Facebook or whatever. Nobody goes on Facebook to watch ads! Have you ever not pressed on the ‘Skip Ad’ button the micro-second it popped up before watching your YouTube video? Admit it, we all do it! So why bother shooting an ad? Your only chance is to make valuable content that your audience wants to see.

     Marketers in our days are split into two separate warring camps. On the one side, you have the traditional advertisers, the giants of old, the titans from an age gone by, many of whom are trying to impose into a bustling new industry by using their means of shooting advertisements for Facebook the same way they do spot commercials on television. These giants have forgotten that they should never ‘put new wine into old wineskins’. Their efforts keep on producing very mediocre results to an extent that many have unofficially categorized digital marketing at best to be an extension of their traditional marketing arms.  Some of them, however, have realized that digital marketing requires completely novel parameters, which helped produce a lot of benefit for their clients. 

   On the other side of the battleground is the techies encampment, filled with bustling young and not-so-young professionals, many of whom have the hope that we will all one day have USB ports coming out of our armpits. But until then, they choose to stoop down and help the muggles cross the street every now and then. These guys know every tech wizardry there is. They keep themselves well informed and frequently battle with each other while using buzzwords like fictitious swords. Every day, it seems, they discover a new tech, a powerful software or a new buzzword. While pitching, they cannot avoid filling each and every sentence with a buzzword. Their CRMs, SEOs, PPCs, KPIs, MOOCs, RTEs and UGCs have made many of us want to bring neckties back into fashion so we could use them to hang ourselves. Some of them have turned out to be great marketers, and combined with their tech savvy, they have become superstars. But for many others, they have forgotten the golden goal of marketing; The actual growth of their clients’ businesses.
​
     It’s really all about servicing the client. The fact remains that no matter how good a client makes her burgers, failure to market herself properly will make her miss out on great opportunities. This is something no one can afford to miss in today’s economy! Many people choose to avoid digital marketing altogether, having given up on the whole process on account of bad strategies. But it’s up to us, the marketing professionals, to present the right solutions at every turn, even if it is something the client doesn’t want to hear, and even if it will cost us the business. Stand your moral ground. Do what is right, and all of us are winners because of it!

Wadih Jreidini

Managing Director - Edsel Enterprise