Do You Make These Mistakes In Your Digital Marketing?

Mistake #1

They keep telling us, “Content is King!” So we create content, lots and lots of it, hoping that it will crown our businesses with unlimited digital marketing success.

Mistake #2

Yet our content does not get the attention it deserves - so what do we do? We double down on creating more content! We create more of it in search of that ‘tipping point’ when it goes viral! The more content we create the less effective it becomes - talk about content 'Cobra Effect!'

Mistake #3

They tell us to, “Share your content on social media and get free traffic!” So we rush to join all the social media platforms there is and share our content at least 3 times a day, and at the most ‘optimal’ times.

Every day, without fail, to maintain consistency, we keep sharing our content on social media until the algorithms come home to roost!

Thanks to the algorithms, we now have been weaned off the organic traffic.

Mistake #4

We said our goodbyes to organic traffic. And are now resigned to paying for traffic.

Mistake #5

Sometimes we do like to wander into the Digital Marketing Wonderland and ask digital fairies if “it is ever possible to get free traffic at all?”

A voice whispers to us, “Do SEO” and another voice chimes in, “but SEO is hard!”

So we avoid it.

Mistake #6

Instead, we decide to continue to spend our money on Google and Facebook. Better the devil you know and besides, with ads, we get quick results compared to SEO which can take months to work.

BUT advertising costs keep going up! While sales are still down!

Mistake #7

Deep down, we know something is not working quite right with our Digital Marketing - but we don’t know which bit of Digital Marketing is not working.

So we continue to chase shiny new Digital Marketing objects!

Any new digital marketing tool - we wonder, "where the free trial at?"

Any new social network on the scene - we wonder, "when can we start blasting ads and get in on the action?"

Any new digital marketing course on Udemy - we wonder, "when will it go on sale?"

The courses are - meh!

20+ hours of stuff you could have googled yourself can be draining sometimes.

Maybe you should try YouTube.

A few hours later down the YouTube rabbit-hole!

You are considering starting your own social media agency or even a dropshipping business.

It seems so easy according to these self-taught digital marketing whizzkids!

Thank goodness they are not coming after our jobs with all their digital wizardry.

Thankfully, you come back to reality.

But your digital marketing is still not working as you’d like - but what can be done eh?

Simba’s Teach Yourself Digital Marketing.

A different approach was needed to teach digital marketing effectively.

Instead of being 15+ hours long, any new course would have to be significantly shorter.

Instead of it being about regurgitating stuff that you can google yourself, any new course would have to share ideas, new frameworks and concepts that challenge us to do better.

This is what you get with Simba's Teach Yourself Digital Marketing.

If you reason from first principles (Something Elon Musk has done well with Tesla and SpaceX), you realise that digital marketing is about two things:

#1 Content.

#2 Links.

Content attracts people to the internet.

But links make the internet go round.

In case you are a bit confused with #2.

Ads are basically temporary links pointing to sometimes temporary content (erm landing pages)

With digital advertising, you pay for each link-click??

On the other hand, SEO is about permanent links to permanent content! (Will let that sink in for a bit!)

Both #1 and #2 have value to any business doing digital marketing - but most of us have been led to believe it's all about #1 i.e. selling our products and services (and now our content) using temporary links.

Most courses about digital marketing focus on #1 too.

One of the best selling courses on Udemy is about #1 - Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

But the money is in the permanent links!

I'll say that again, the money is in the permanent links to permanent content!

Even if Google and Facebook disappeared - businesses with permanent links will still be around!

But SEO is HARD!

SEO is hard if you follow the conventional SEO wisdom.

Which goes like so:

1. Do keyword research using some expensive SEO tool that requires you to sacrifice a body part every month! (you can still use Ubersuggest or Google Keyword Planner)

2. Create long-form (minimum 5,000-word article) content that matches intent,

3. Do 100s of On-Page SEO things.

4. Do another 100 of Technical SEO things

5. Then magically get links.

And oh, one more thing go learn these 200+ google ranking factors while you are at it!

First-Mover Advantage vs Competitive Advantage

SEO the conventional way will not give you a competitive advantage.

In fact, most digital marketing tactics, courses, knowledge will not give you a competitive advantage.

Most conventional wisdom will give you ‘First Mover’ advantage because you are the first to implement new SEO (or digital marketing) tactics that your competitors are not doing.

But eventually, your competitors will catch up with you, and you will all soon be back to square one.

Sometimes being a first mover in digital marketing means you get to fail (and lose money) while your competitors will learn from your failures and find success!

You need to do SEO the Amazon way.

Yes, you read that right!

In 1995, Jeff Bezos gave a short testimonial to Eric Ward, an SEO guy who did SEO very differently to most.

"Thanks for the great work on our launch, Eric. Your efforts and report were excellent" - Jeff Bezos

A year later, Amazon launched the biggest SEO program on the internet, that is responsible for billions of dollars of business.

How else did they survive the dot com bubble?

How else do you sell millions of books and products, without advertising for each of them?

If Amazon were to pay to advertise for EVERY product listed on Amazon they would have been bankrupt by now!

“But most of us can’t relate to Amazon, they are a trillion-dollar company!”

Yes and No.

Yes, you can’t replicate Amazon’s SEO program.

But you can do SEO the Amazon way, you can have the same SEO strategy, principles, way of thinking, paradigms, that you can adapt and transform your digital marketing.

Canva, Carwow, Neil Patel, Rwanda (yes, a country) have applied SEO the Amazon way and its working wonders for them. (some companies do benefit from SEO serendipity!)

One More Thing - The new Big 5 digital marketing tools.

With Simba's Teach Yourself Digital Marketing course, not only do you get new marketing ideas, but you get new digital marketing frameworks and tools to go with it.

1. Simba's Five Forces

If you ever wondered why your content marketing wasn’t working - Simba’s Five Forces could explain why. This will change the way you do content marketing. Put it this way, you will not create new content without understanding the Five Forces that are working against your content!

Simba’s Five Forces was inspired by Porter’s Five Forces, a strategic tool that's stood the test of time - 30 years and counting!

2. Simba’s Content Matrix.

How do you communicate the value of your content marketing efforts to senior executives, decision-makers etc?

Inspired by the BCG Matrix, Simba’s Content Matrix is a very handy tool that helps you get a high-level view of which content is working and which isn’t, helping you formulate a robust content strategy.

3. Customer’s Ikigai.

If you want to create content that your target audience will love, then the Customer’s Ikigai will help you. It will guide you into getting a total understanding of your target customer.

4. Simba’s Content Value Chain.

Digital Marketing fails to work in most organisations because most organisations are not set up correctly for it to work! The Simba’s Content Value Chain can help senior decision-makers see what areas they can invest in to improve their digital marketing efforts.

5. Content/Market Fit

A lot of startups work hard to achieve product/market fit. But, product/market fit is not exclusive to just a few!

Some startups don't take digital marketing seriously, until its late.

Helen Min goes on to say, "In Silicon Valley, marketing isn't important - until it is"

Before or after, Product/Market Fit comes Content/Market Fit

Try achieving Content/Market Fit!

Dare I say it, you can achieve success with doing Content/Market fit first!