The danger of relying on quick wins in digital marketing

Business Development | Digital Marketing

We live in a world of high speed. Fast food is now even faster with the likes of Justeat and Deliveroo. Amazon Prime can save the day for that last minute present you’ve forgotten to buy (we’ve all been there) and you can binge watch an entire season of Selling Sunset in one night (I haven’t done that – honest!).

We are used to things happening the very instant we want them to, instant results, instant gratification, the legends that are Queen, once wrote “I want it all and I want it now”.

This expectation and mindset is alive and well in business where terms like “low hanging fruit” and “quick wins” are announced as the magic potion to cure their digital marketing problems.

But what might seem a good idea and the answer to your problems, may not give you the results you want in the long term. If it sounds like a quick fix, you hardly ever win (apart from maybe Usain Bolt, he wins by being quick, obviously).

What are quick wins?

Low hanging fruit, shortcuts, quick wins, call it what you like, we love them. In digital marketing terms these are normally the tasks or areas of concern that can be sorted quickly with the potential for instant impact.

Quick wins could look like a number of different things: new landing page copy, flashier images, a better call to action. They are the smaller, quicker jobs that can be actioned immediately without the need for endless meetings and decision making. For this reason they look attractive and makes it seems like a business is moving forward in its activities.

Quick wins aren’t all bad

Now before we get on to the bit about how insanely wrong this is (and you know it’s coming), it’s worth pointing out that not all quick win thinking is bad. There is a time and a place for assessing areas of improvement or change, it has its place and here at Twogether Digital we look for quick wins that we think will help our partners when it is appropriate.

Whenever we work with our client partners we run full audits of their digital marketing efforts and this gives us a very good starting point as it highlights  the areas of weakness that needs attention. We will put together a strategy based on our findings and a number of these things will be prioritised because they are ‘quick wins’. Things that are fairly obvious, things that would be a real stumbling block to your potential customers.

That’s ok, there are results to be had from the obvious things. Little wins can become a significant gain for a business, that way you can show value bit by bit. It also helps mental well-being to see some ROI with improvements; it just feels better to get a few of the quicker fixes in place before going deeper.

The problem with quick win thinking

There is, however, a fine line between some early, easy wins that sort the more obvious issues out, and fixating on little details until you see that sales dial move a fraction. There are eight reasons why being obsessed with quick win thinking can seriously damage your digital marketing efforts.

1. It’s all you ever do

If your mindset is to just focus on picking the low hanging fruit, it becomes very difficult to move from this thinking. You move from quick win task to quick win task, and will then most likely come back to the same ones again in an effort to improve upon the result you achieved last time. For instance, your landing page isn’t converting as well as you’d hoped, after having a look you decide a quick win would be to do a/b testing on the call to action button colour to see what difference it makes. You do this over and over again until the whole rainbow of colours has been used.

Now you maybe moved the dial slightly in a positive way, but in any real meaningful way? It’s doubtful. But you will find yourself stuck in this loop of micro detail, unable to move beyond this level of thinking because it appears to be quick and easy. But actually, it really isn’t. All you’ve done is waste time on the kind of detail that should be last in your sales funnelling work.

2. You play the blame game

When you zero in on micro detail it can be very easy to play the blame game. You maybe have different people working on different parts of a campaign, perhaps it’s the creative, maybe it’s the copy, it could be the keyword targeting. Changing little things with no massive pay off can feel like you are making a specific person or department responsible for underperformance and they could feel attacked. This will inevitably lead to negativity that if not sorted out could spread, especially if it is a common occurrence.

3. You miss opportunities

If you spend too long with your focus on the minor detail of things, there is potential to miss other opportunities coming down the line. Instead of playing around with calls to action wording, you could investigate whether there is a better social media platform to use, or a trend currently happening that you could jump on.

Taking a moment to step back and take a down view of your current digital marketing allows you the opportunity to ensure your efforts are correctly aligned, consistent, and optimised.

4. It doesn’t solve the real problem

Probably the biggest issue with quick win thinking is it actually covers up bigger issues. “If I just change this colour”, “add new imagery”, “make the ad stand out more”. A lot of the time, the issue isn’t any of these things. 

Rather than confront the real problem, which is normally bigger and harder to sort, some companies will try and solve the problem in different ways, they think throwing more budget at their marketing and creating more paid ad campaigns is the solution to their underperforming sales.

So what could the real problems be if it’s not a content or creative issue? Well that will depend on the company and it’s service, but we have found some common threads in with B2B companies we have got results for in the past.

5. You don’t think about brand positioning

Foundational to everything you do is your branding. I’m not talking about the pretty visuals that we all like. No, what I’m referring to is your brand strategy. The why, the what, the how of your company. Your personality, your values, how you are different than your competitors. Every bit of your marketing hangs on your brand strategy, how you position yourself in the marketplace, and what makes you special. If all you plan to do is compete on price, then you do not have a strong brand position. Website visitors need to know why they should choose you over someone else.

This is hard work, it takes time. In fact, we run a brand workshop for this very reason. But if you put the work in, you will have a clearer picture of who you are which bleeds into your marketing efforts.

6. You don’t think about you target audience

Nothing raises a red flag to us as a company then when we ask the question, “who is your ideal client”? And the answer is a shrug of the shoulders or even worse “everyone”! That is not an answer my friend, and that way lies a scattergun approach to your marketing and wasted budget.

How do you know what channels to utilise? What content to deliver? What language to use? For optimum conversion rates, one of the basic things to get right is knowing your target audience. Without knowing this, you are pretty much peeing into the wind.

You maybe have several different ideal clients, that’s fine. The important thing is to do the research, understand them, understand their pain points and what they are looking for. This then gives you a platform on which to work out your strategy and content.

7. You don’t hone your offer

A little less known conversion blocker is the strength of your offer. Yes you know who you are and what you sell, but are you putting it across in a compelling way? Sales copy is an art form, it requires thought, understanding, simplicity. Your offer should be attractive so when your target audience sees it, they see the value and move to conversion.

8. You don’t cultivate a great sales team

Sales are important (obviously, you’re not doing this for the jokes are you?!!), thats why you have a sales team. It might be you don’t think you have a sales team because you handle all the selling, you do have a sales team – it’s just that its you!

Whether a large team or a one man band, those handling your sales play a crucial part in company growth (again, thats obvious – none of this is rocket science). They should be able to take the enquiry and convert it to a sale and hopefully if the above has all been done correctly it shouldn’t be too difficult. That said, a poor sales person can really be a problem. You need to take sure that your sales department are closely aligned with your brand positioning, target audience and offer. 

People buy from people, fact. If the sales team are personable, can sell your brand and your value you should have nothing to fear. But if they aren’t following these things then you have a problem. Get them educated, get them trained. We love this book (@PaulReillyVAS you can thank me later), it aligns very closely with what we believe as a company in terms of selling value. 

Quick wins have their place, but do the hard things

There is a time and a place for quick wins, certainly once you have the foundation in place you can spend some time fine tuning your outreach. But don’t let it become all consuming. Ensure you have a strong foundation and are solving any bigger problems first. It takes time and some of it isn’t easy, but it’s value to your company is undeniable.

With a quick win mentality, you normally only see small wins and that’s ok. But for bigger impact make sure you are looking beyond quick wins, do the hard things, do the things that require time and effort. That will give you longevity and security.