I jokingly tell my prospects and clients in India that if you throw a stone in any direction, it will hit a couple of Digital Marketing agencies. And many of these companies have tried the services of Digital Marketing agencies.

However, that being said, there seems to be a serious disenchantment among the customer community about the efficacy of these agencies. Their dissatisfaction stems from the fact that practically no leads have manifested despite spending many months and dollars on them.

I was wondering, "What could the reasons be?". Here are my two cents on what could be going wrong here:

I always say that Sales is a product - not an addition - of different aspects of the sales cycle (Prospecting, Qualifying, Value Selling, Stakeholder Management & Negotiations), and if even one isn't done well, we could lose the deal.

Similarly, Marketing is a product of 3 C's: Content, Correct Channels and Consistency, and we need to get all three right to ensure that Brand Awareness and Leads are created.

Of course, we need to firstly identify who is our Target Audience correctly, find where they are, and which "channels" they generally tune into. Often this itself is a point of failure. Then even if we get the 3 C's correct, our marketing campaign will be a failure. After identifying our Target audience, we should work on the 3 C's

Content:

Don't just build good looking Content! We have to first identify what are all the pain points of this target audience, what is the impact of those pains on their business / lives, and start building Content around how exactly our solution addresses those issues, and what is our Value Proposition for them.

So good Content is that which attracts our prospects' attention amidst the cacophony of social media, then tells them something they can relate to, gives them a brief glimpse of how the solution can address their issues, and ends with a hook / call to action.

The content could be written posts, GIFs, Videos, Blogs, you name it, but ensure it is adhering to the above to the extent possible.

Channels:

Finding the right Channels is practically a science, and beyond my area of expertise. Today there are multiple ways that one can educate a prospect and attract them to our brand, but they are all overcrowded. We need to run a few Growth hacking experiments with different Marketing channels (choose from the ones where your Target audience is mostly like to be found spending time, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Insta, Twitter, YouTube, Email Marketing, Google Adwords, SEO, Website, Tele calling, Events, PR, etc) with specific objectives and timelines, and see which ones give us the best results. Then we choose those channels and allocate our Marketing dollars there.

Consistency:

We need to realise that in an extremely crowded market, where literally millions of Content marketers are bombarding the same prospects, it would take some time before your target audience actually sees your content enough times, and starts developing awareness of your brand and a desire to engage. If in this period, we stop advertising, we have lost the battle.

It is like planting a seed and watering it regularly, and not giving up till we see the green shoots coming out, and certainly not abandoning it once we see the green shoots. So if we stop investing in Marketing just when someone has noticed your brand, it is like killing the fledgling plant. So, be Consistent in your marketing efforts.

Hence, Good Marketing = Content x Correct Channels x Consistency. We need to get ALL three correct to get maximum impact, i.e Best of content in the correct channels without consistency is of no use. Or posting bad or irrelevant content in the right channels consistently will put OFF your audience.

Don't just blame your Marketing Agency for its inability to get you leads! Figure out which of your 3C's is off target, and then work with a Digital Marketing Agency for execution!