A study in the US found that 49% of businesses are doing marketing without a strategy:
Based on my experience working almost 5 years in Thailand I am guessing that these numbers would be much higher for Thai businesses.
Shocking? Yes.
Surprising? No.
We had the pleasure talking to 100s of business owners and marketing managers and are constantly trying to figure out why marketing planning and strategy constantly falls behind.
These are the 4 most common reasons that we have been experiencing:
1. Businesses don’t understand the power of (Facebook) marketing
I mean we all know that we should be doing Facebook marketing, because “everybody” is doing it, right? This is the wrong reason.
With this mindset, you are setting up yourself for failure. Let’s have a look at the numbers provided by Hootsuite and We Are Social:
There was no time on earth where it was that easy to market your business. All you have to do is write a caption, create a banner, put 100 USD on it and pick the right 1000 people out of a pool of 1.968 billion humans on earth who should be seeing your message. And in 90% of the cases, YOUR customers will be part of these 1.968 billion humans.
The most successful and fastest growing businesses that I know are completely based on Facebook marketing these days.
With our own hands, we have helped Entrepreneurs to grow from a daily revenue of 1800 USD to 6400 USD daily revenue simply by scaling their success on Facebook. And I am sure we will be at 8000 USD daily revenue if you are reading this later than September 2017 for this particular client.
6400 USD means 192 000 USD in revenue per month or 2 336 000 USD in revenue per year. This is a lot of money for young entrepreneurs with a few years of business experience. These people do not own a huge and fancy office and don’t need any investment. All they have is a website and a team with less than 15 people (who are based all over the world). Plus having a good Facebook marketing agency obviously helps.
Another great example is the start up Coco Jack. They are making the world an easier and safer place by selling Coco Nut openers. Even before they attended the US start up show “Shark Tank” in 2015 they had generated 325 000 USD in sales revenue. 99% of these sales are being made on Facebook. Read: The whole company growth strategy has been based on the marketing potential of Social Media. If you want to read more about this project and how we have helped them to increase sales by another 126% within 5 weeks then you will enjoy reading our case study.
Once you have seen and experienced these real results with your own eyes it is hard to go back to SEO, TV commercials or billboards. It hurts to see that 95% of businesses still limit their Facebook marketing effort to writing 8 half-hearted Facebook postings a month without any clear intention and objectives.
2. Digital Marketing is too new for businesses to really understand its importance
The world is changing rapidly fast. Marketing techniques that worked great 3 years ago are outdated today and will most likely not be the holy grail to success anymore. And our education system has not even caught up with the marketing from 10 years ago… The only ways to stay up-to-date are by own experiences being in the trenches of online marketing and to follow latest international trends (read: follow English speaking sources). Most business owners do not have the time or interest for any of the both.
No surprise that most businesses still deal with digital marketing as it is a nice gimmick to have. While in reality, it is an unbelievable strong tool for business growth. If businesses would realize this then they would act accordingly and start with a strong strategy and plan on how to implement Facebook marketing in their overall way to business success.
I cannot back the next point up with historical proof but I am very sure that the first houses have been built without any plans thousands of years ago. One day our ancestors decided that it is not cool to live in caves anymore and they have decided to build basic houses instead. They probably did not start with a plan and strategy. They simply put some wood and stones together.
But these houses have been destroyed by mother nature or simply collapsed by itself thousands of times.
It took thousands of years until humans realized the importance of planning. Again, I don’t have the facts to back it up. But I hope it is true, that there is no skyscraper that has been build without a proper plan.
What business are you building? Are you blindly putting wood and sheets together or are your building a business on a solid foundation to last?
Do you have a solid strategy and plan for how the marketing is going to benefit your business over time or are you simply putting bricks together?
3. Business owners trust their in-house marketing team too much
This is a tough one. We have been hiring both international and Thai marketing experts in Bangkok for years. We hired even more online marketers internationally. When it comes specifically to Facebook marketing we have hired and fired over 30 marketing experts and agencies in total. In fact, North Star Digital was born because of a lack of determined Facebook marketing agencies.
And it is tough to find good talent. Very tough.
For an owner who could not do it them, elves it is pretty much impossible to judge if their marketing team is doing the right things or not. Even worse: It is impossible to guide and coach your team to actually get better and to do better things.
It should be obvious: People who have never been fully responsible (as the head of marketing or the only person involved) to successfully market a business then they don’t know how to do it. Because the only way to learn is by experience. They might be on the right track and be consuming the right education but the truth is that your business is a big experiment for them to gain their skills. They might fail with your business after 1-2 years of no results, move to another company with the same results (but a “better” resume) and one day they might make it.
What happens once “they made it” and have enough experience to replicate the success? In the best case, they grow fast together with your company. In other cases, they start their own company. Or they get hired by a better company with more impact, responsibilities, benefits and growth opportunities.
Bottom line: If you don’t have a senior marketer with a proven track-record of success in marketing then this person will have a hard time living up to your expectations. In most cases, your business needs more experienced guidance.
4. We humans don’t like to plan & strategize and rather “get right to work”…
… not understanding that planning & strategy is the most important part of the work.
I am not here to judge you or to blame you. I am here to share my own experiences. I am still guilty of doing the same mistakes all the time in various walks of life. I am doing the same mistake over and over again.
It is just too easy to fall into the trap of being able to wing it by myself on the go. A good example is my gym routine.
Two years ago I have booked a personal fitness trainer and could not wait to get started. The first thing he made? An assessment and a plan. How boring
Looking back it was the best thing ever as I had goals and a clear path to success. I made progress in the following months.
2 years later? I am still following the same exercises, but without a proper plan. And without seeing any progress.
If the marketing progress for your business can be compared to my fitness progress then your business is definitely missing out. You can have a look at the article Elements of an effective marketing strategy to grow your business in order to see which elements your marketing needs to be successful on Facebook.
