How to Sell Your Digital Marketing Strategy to a Skeptic

You’re in charge of lead generation for your company/office or maybe you’d like to outsource to third-party professionals. Either way, you know you need to take advantage of a good digital marketing strategy to bring in leads and convert them into customers.

But when you start mentioning things like “PPC”, “SEO”, and “ROI on conversions,” you see your higher-up's eyes glaze over. How are you supposed to sell your need for a digital marketing strategy to a skeptic? 

At Four Tens, we understand that you can sometimes get pushback when it comes to introducing new digital marketing techniques. Why not just stick with marketing as it’s always been, is a complaint we’ve heard.

Here are our top points for convincing your boss why you need a digital marketing strategy: 

• Determine “why” you need a strategy: Finding your “why” is going to be the biggest form of persuasion that you can have in this conversation. “Just because” or “Everyone else is doing it” isn’t going to cut it. If you do research into your company’s current marketing efforts and find room for improvement, use those specific points and improvement opportunities to drive home your argument. 
• Find the main goal of the strategy: Digital marketing is a pretty huge umbrella term. You’ve got analytics and reporting, pay-per-click, SEO, content writing, lead generation, campaign creation, social media, email marketing, etc., etc. Just telling your boss you want to do “digital marketing” isn’t going to help them envision the actual process or results. Narrow down your focus to “Facebook ads” or “Lead generation campaigns using email marketing” to get a better idea of the scope of your project. This will help your boss understand what you are envisioning. If you aren’t sure where to start at all, talk to a digital marketing expert! 
• Use metrics to prove your point: In business, numbers tell a lot of the story. If you said, “I want to use digital marketing to increase our leads,” your boss may write you off. If you tell them the kind of impact that digital marketing can have, now your case just got a lot harder to ignore. LYFE Marketing says that​ 90% B2C businesses report social media as being the most effective content marketing tactic. And that's only the social media portion of digital marketing!
• Focus on SMART goals: SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. The level of detail involved in creating a SMART goal requires research and a thorough knowledge of your current systems and end goals. "Increase lead generation by 20% within the next twelve months through email marketing campaigns" is a lot clearer than “get more leads.” When you tell your boss your SMART goals, it shows that you are an authority on the subject matter. 
• Define opportunities and threats: Rose-colored glasses won’t help you sell a skeptic. But pin-pointing opportunities and threats in new technology and the competition will be a point in your favor when it comes to convincing a boss. 
• Build your case: Using everything you’ve researched and compiled, construct your argument. You know your opportunity zones, you know your weaknesses, and you’ve set reasonable goals for the short-term and the long-term. Put it all together and view your proposal from a bird’s eye view. Double check that you didn’t miss anything and see if you can get someone else’s perspective as well before taking it to your boss. 

The goal is to convince your boss to see the same potential that you do for your digital marketing efforts, whether that is implementing your own strategy or working with an outside group. Outsourcing the work to professionals is something we’ve talked about in the past​ (it’s what we do here, after all) but whether your marketing is in-house or outsourced, you’ll be much more successful when leadership understands the value and goals in it as well.