7 Big Misconceptions

7 Biggest Misconceptions about Digital Media and Marketing

1.  Creating my own website with those build-your-own-website packages will be cheaper and easier.

Response: Myspace.com, ‘nuff said.  The entire reason Facebook was able to completely overtake Myspace’s market share had to do with design.  Myspace allowed users the ability to customize far too many aspects of their page design, leading to pages that looked like this:

Without the proper training in computer code and design, you can anticipate frustration from the get-go.   Also, the designer has to understand how to make the page aesthetically pleasing, organized, understandable, and user-friendly.

Bottom line: Do-it-yourself websites sound like fun, but aren’t.  They are not professional, and are just accidents waiting to happen.

2.  You must be mega rich because your hourly rate is astronomical. 

Response: No, not really.  A proper digital marketing agency is going to have multiple resources assigned to a website redesign.  This usually includes: a graphic designer managed by a Creative Director, a front-end developer, a back-end developer, a copywriter, and a project manager, among others.  Having specialists in each area is what makes a site turn out as professional and brand-identity-focused as possible.

Bottom line: If businesses hire a digital marketing and media company to handle their online market, their business will have the best chance of putting forth an online presence that truly conveys the brand message they are striving to achieve in the minds of their target audience.

3.  “I want a custom eCommerce solution with a CMS on the backend, integrated with social media and a blog, and I’m thinking you (JCM) can have that done by the end of the week?”

Response:  I heard the word “custom” right away.  That most likely adds a month or two to your projected release date.  And, it takes us more than one week to understand the vision of your company and to incorporate the perfect use of image, sound, and words that will attract our target audience.

Bottom line: Custom-built solutions take time.  A fairly simple custom eCommerce platform can require hundreds of thousands of lines of code, each of which has to be written by human fingers.

4.  My site designed in 1997 is perfectly fine.

Response: Here are some other things that happened in 1997: President Clinton was inaugurated for his second term in office, Toni Braxton & Alanis Morissette won the 24th American Music Award, at age 25, Jeff Gordon was youngest winner in Daytona 500 history, and disk drives were just being introduced to the public.  This computer is what your website could have been designed on if actually built in 1997:

Bottom line:  If your website was uploaded over a dial-up connection, it’s probably time to consider updating to advanced technological solutions.

5.  If I build the website, everyone will know about it and visit it.

Response: Just because you put a website on the Internet does not guarantee traffic.  Integrating social media into your website as well as PPC management and organic search engine optimization will expand the number of visitors to your site and provide them with a variety of ways to stay connected to your business or company.

Bottom-line: Designing and building a website is hard, and keeping traffic consistent and new takes hard work and (most of the time) money.  Bottom-line: Do you think even the regular attenders to this church (shown below) even visits their own church’s website?  I think not.  And do you think this website brought new people into their church? I think not either.

6.  People are going to beat down the door to “like” my Facebook page.

Response: If you aren’t creating reasons for interactions, no one really cares about your business’ Facebook page.  Facebook is more focused towards personal interaction and information, but some business has thrived off of Facebook because of the way it is integrated within all other sources of media marketing.  Shown below is a perfect example of a Nonprofit company that has a decent website as well as an updated Facebook account for three years, but they still only have 59 “likes.”

Bottom Line: Facebook is a successful way to maintain client/customer relations, but it takes more time and effort than most business owners anticipate.

7.  I downloaded a copy of Photoshop, so I’ll just figure out how to put what I design on the web.

Response: Good luck with that.

Bottom line: Photoshop is only the first step in creating a website design, and it is a highly complex program that takes years and years to master.