Turning digital marketing into real opportunities

By Emma Peterson. 

A realistic look at how to use digital ads to build your business. 

It used to be that the focus of many marketing strategies was always on print media, with things like getting an ad in the local newspaper being the central point of an advertising campaign. However, the way brands get their messaging across has changed drastically over the years. Today, the core focus of advertising campaigns are often digital. To learn more about navigating this newer, digital advertising world, Karol Weyman sat down with Rob Murray of Intrigue Media for an episode of From the Ground Up™. 

Rob opened the conversation by highlighting the biggest mistake he sees businesses fall into when trying to build digital marketing campaigns:  

I think the biggest mistake is having a mindset of like, ‘Okay, I'm going to spend all this money and I'm going to grow and get good projects.’ They think it’s a simple equation that just gives them leads. But even if you have the best advertising, you still have to work the leads.   

What does working those leads look like? It can be as simple as answering the phone. Rob explained, “Lead response time is a huge factor. There are exceptions, but good response time is not the norm. And even if you’re spending all this money on ads, if you’re not following up on leads quickly and consistently, it’s not going to be effective.” 

To be clear, Rob isn’t saying that you need to be pushy with your leads. Following up simply means making sure they feel seen. He shared some examples of what this could look like: 

It can be simple, just like, ‘Hey, I saw that you inquired yesterday. Want to make sure you're taken care of and that you know we haven't forgot about you.’ Next day, if you still haven’t heard back, same thing, ‘Hey, maybe this isn't a priority or you're really busy right now. Let me know either way. I'm going to keep bugging you until I hear otherwise because I want to make sure you know you're taken care of. We don't forget about our customers.’ There's nothing pushy about that.  

Another mistake he often sees is a lack of structure around advertisements. Rob elaborated on what this means, saying, “A lot of people don't set up their structure for success. They have all their services under one campaign instead of splitting them all out. And then the biggest mistake people make is they don't have an attribution platform to measure where every lead comes from and whether it turns into a quote or into dollars.” 

Why is this structure so important? It helps give you a clear understanding of what ads are performing, which ones are getting leads and what your customers are looking for. Rob explained, “In our world, a conversion is a phone call or a form submission. It's an inquiry. It's the only conversion we care about. Everything else is vanity metrics, like four contact page views per visit. Because we don’t want to be spending a lot of money on getting people to visit our contact page, if they're not turning into deals. And so, by having good structure in our ad campaigns, we can see where every lead came from and which campaigns work to actually create opportunities.” 

To learn more about digital marking, Listen to the whole episode with Rob or Watch the recording of his conversation with Karol.