build-it-they-might-come

The Truth About Digital Marketing:  Build It And They Might NOT Come!

By John Hogg

Tags:

Digital Marketing Online Marketing
  • This blog is the first in a two part series looking at how to achieve a return from your digital marketing and the stages you can expect to work through as you set up your lead generation machine to deliver results. You can skip to the second part here “Six Phases To Online Marketing Success

The Truth About Digital Marketing:  Build It And They Might NOT Come!

When Iowa farmer, Ray Kinsella (AKA Kevin Costner in the movie, "Field of Dreams"), announced that he had heard a voice in his corn field, most people probably thought he was going a bit mad.

Let’s be honest, if you thought you heard a voice some night when you were out tending your crops, would you tell people - let alone act on it?

Well, the bold Ray did just that when he thought he heard a voice telling him:

  • "If you build it, they will come."

…and the rest is history! 

Ray built a baseball diamond out in the middle of nowhere, and low and behold, all the old greats turned up and started playing.

The phrase, “build it and they will come”, has become quite popular and quite a few marketing pros will use the analogy to explain why a particular course of action should be followed.

  • The trouble is...

                ...building it isn’t the be all and end all. It doesn’t end there!

Unfortunately, the reality is that when you are looking at generating a return from your online activities “building it” is just like arriving at the starting line.

I have seen many a firm build a lovely website with great looking content and then sit back and ask why the leads aren’t rolling in.  What makes this worse is that a huge effort might have gone into developing all of their digital assets. 

Maybe their day-to-day work has got in the way and the whole project has become tedious and suffered long delays before they finally get there?

It is completely understandable that after a big push to get everything finished a person might lift their head and mistakenly wonder where the results are.  The cold facts of life are, however, that they now need to start using it. 

  • If you build an engine for a formula one race car you won't suddenly become a Champion Formula One racing driver, likewise, when you build a great website and populate it with lovely content, the leads just won’t start arriving overnight either.

There is an old adage which says:

  • Version One is always better than Version None!”

So, if you are currently thinking about embarking on a strategy to leverage results from digital marketing, think about this before you get too bogged down in the details.  Don’t let the perfectionist gene take over. 

Build your strategy, develop your assets and get it out there! 

Even if everything isn’t ready for launch day you can always come back and add to it later or change things as you go.  The big difference is that when your work is live you will have a chance to at least receive some sort of return.  If, however, all of your work is focused on meetings, developing content or reviewing websites on a development server, this is never going to win you a client.  

Get your work live and continue to refine and build on it continually.  Nothing will ever be perfect so get it out and you can also receive some feedback before it is too late and everything is locked down and finalised.

So what do you need to do for your firm?  All that time, effort and cost to just get things to the starting line... What else do you need to do to maximise your chances of achieving a return?

Make sure to read our next blog in this mini-series on the “6 Phases To Online Marketing Success” to find out what you need to focus on with your online marketing initiatives.  Alternatively, you may wish to download a free copy of our Ultimate Guide To Winning New Clients From Your Website.

New call-to-action

John Hogg Enlighten IC

John Hogg

John is managing director of Enlighten IC and has been involved in legal marketing and technology marketing for over 25 years. He is passionate about how an inbound approach to marketing can help firms to drive leads and grow their business.

Get In Touch