It’s no secret the world of digital marketing moves quickly. In the space between starting work on Monday morning and packing up on Friday afternoon, any number of curveballs can be thrown your way that you need to quickly adapt to and work out how to implement as part of your digital strategy. Whether it’s an update to a platform’s interface, a new automation feature or a new ad policy issue to get to the bottom of, every week throws up a new challenge for even the most experienced digital marketers.
Along with new challenges, the relentless pace of BAU activity means that time is becoming an increasingly precious commodity. Campaign launches, reporting requirements & daily optimisation tasks can leave marketers wondering where the week has gone and where they’ll find time to look at the bigger picture - particularly in the agency world.
At a more junior level, this pace can be beneficial. In last week’s post we discussed the importance of fundamentals & giving juniors the opportunity to repeatedly practice the basics can be a great way to quickly build up their skills and receive immediate feedback. When you’re setting up new campaigns every week and doing the repetitive but crucial daily optimisation tasks, your skill level rapidly increases.
However, at a senior level, this pace can lead to effort being applied in the wrong areas. When your digital marketing role evolves into truly understanding a business & applying strategic thinking to an account, you need the space & time to properly do this. Without the necessary amount of time being dedicated to these tasks, everyone gets short changed. The business isn’t getting the results they deserve from their advertising while the agency and their staff aren’t doing the standard of work that they’re truly capable of.
So what’s the solution?
It’s easy to fall into the trap of project style work where effort is solely applied to responding to briefs, creating the relevant campaigns and analysing results as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, there’s no additional value added here. Digital marketers are everywhere and there will always be someone who can push out campaigns faster and for lower cost. The end result? Clients move on and skilled digital marketers get burned out as they don’t have the ability to use the higher level knowledge they’ve built over their careers.
Instead, the conversation around digital marketing needs to change so that the importance of appropriate thinking & planning time is emphasised just as much as speed and accuracy of execution when pitching for new business. This might lead to a reduction in total client volume, but the clients who understand the importance of both elements are likely to stay longer, increase their retainers and enjoy a better working relationship with marketers who truly understand their business and what will work for them.
With digital spend increasing every year, the value of a strategic marketer will only increase. Businesses that understand this and are willing to look further than the next campaign are setting themselves up for long term success. After all, if your competitors are running campaigns that have been planned and set up in just a few days, why would you want to do that too?
To learn more about strategic digital marketing, get in touch.