3 Lies they told you about Digital Marketing » Portal Insights

It is not known exactly what the “ground zero” of Digital Marketing was but, using a little logical thinking, it probably arose when the first visionary person decided to use such an “internet” to promote their brand, products or services – or even even your ideas.

A quick search on Google tells us that the first internet was created in 1969 to connect University of California with Stanford Research Institutewith the aim (like the greatest innovations in history) of facilitating the exchange of information in war strategies.

In fact, it was this year that the first email in history was sent.

In the 90s, the British physicist Tim Berners-Lee developed the first browser and, from then on, the internet became more accessible to ordinary people, who began to use this new technology initially to communicate with each other.

And where there is communication, there is marketing. And if marketing is done on the internet, we can conclude that Digital Marketing emerged in the 90s.

Today, the term “digital marketing” is sought after in Google around 500 thousand times a month and dozens of tools emerge annually to help people and companies get involved with this new strategy.

But can Digital Marketing be considered a strategy? In this text we will answer this question, in addition to other lies that people tell about Digital Marketing.

1. Digital Marketing is a strategy

To understand why Digital Marketing cannot be considered a strategy, we first need to understand one of the most important theoretical concepts in Marketing: the Marketing Mix.

Paraphrasing the Wikipediathe Marketing Mix “is a set of controllable variables that influence the way consumers respond to the market and consists of what the company can do to influence demand for its product, aiming to achieve the desired level of sales within its market -target.”

The concept was created by professor Jerome McCarthy and disseminated by Philip Kotler in his books. The Marketing Mix basically represents the four fundamental pillars of any Marketing strategy (also known as the 4 P's of Marketing).

• Price;
• Square;
• Product;
• Promotion.

Within this context, which until now is the most complete that we know today to understand marketing, “Digital Marketing” would fall into the category of Square, which can be understood as “channel” or “media”.

And what does this change in your life?

Firstly, by understanding that Digital Marketing is not a strategy, you can see more clearly what your role will be within your company's marketing – your budget, goals, ROI, etc.

And, most importantly, you stop believing that Digital Marketing replaces all other variables that determine marketing success. Just to name a few examples: pricing based on market and seasonality, brand recognition at events and printed pieces, product development, customer success and commercial strategy for sales.

2. Digital Marketing is easier and cheaper than “traditional marketing”

Here we need to understand, firstly, that “cheap” or “expensive” are totally relative concepts.

Without wanting to go too far into the calculations, here’s a very practical example:

Invest in banners on the network Display of Google can be considered cheap when we see the CPC (Cost Per Click) lower than other positions, but if we take into account that the CTR (Click Per Impression) is no more than 0.5%, while the positioning in search of Google it can be up to 20% in some markets, what is cheap ends up being expensive.

Recently, I had the opportunity to see with my own eyes the strength that print media still has in some markets. A friend asked me for help investing R$100 in ads on Google for one day and, in parallel, distributed business cards at some colleges in the city – the investment in the cards was approximately R$300.

Of course, we are failing to consider several factors here, but in one day, using a digital and offline strategy, she got 10x more contacts through business cards than through ads on the website. Google.

At first glance, business cards would be considered expensive, especially if we take into account the time and effort involved in physically distributing them around the city. But, in the end, they were cheaper than ads on the Google.

Obviously, we are failing to consider several factors such as seasonality, target audience, learning curve, etc. But the example is to illustrate that not always (and I have dozens of other cases to illustrate) Digital Marketing is cheaper than offline.

3. Digital Marketing means being present on social media

It is difficult to conceive of using Digital Marketing as a communication channel without the presence of social networks. After all, for many years we have heard from agencies and companies that sell social media tools that it is essential to have pages and profiles on social networks to interact with customers.

But believe me, there are a lot of companies out there making millions of reais a year without even having an official Facebook page.

This is because social networks have some disadvantages, such as reducing the organic reach (that is, the one you don't invest in ads) of posts for business profiles and extremely niche audiences.

Can you imagine, for example, a famous restaurant in Rio de Janeiro looking for kitchenware suppliers on Instagram? Yes, it can happen, but knowing this market in depth I can say that it is rare – we are talking about a market busy with sales representatives and very complex sales processes.

Obviously, if a company's financial resources were infinite and there was no need to prioritize investments based on cost-benefit, the ideal would be to be present in ALL channels.

But if you have to choose, in some cases, the effort and cost involved in being present on social media is not always worth it.

Bonus: Why Digital Marketing Agencies Don't Work

Finally, I leave here a video recommendation from V4 Companyone of our biggest references when it comes to marketing and sales.