Ninjas, Bullies and Overnight Success…Oh My! – A Few Words on Working with Digital Marketers

With the amount of time I spend online and the sites I visit related to the work I do, I am consistently bombarded with ads and sponsored content from so many marketing consultants offering their services. For me, it’s something I look at and scroll past, since well that’s what I do, but I can only imagine how people who are looking for marketing services might feel. I’ve read quite a few lately that have made me feel the need to take the time to cut through all the fluff and all the sales language to take a stance that reflects the reason why I started my own business and the type of marketing engagement I prefer to offer my clients.

 There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people out here on the internet selling their services as a digital marketing professionals. You’ll see people use terms like social media ninja to describe themselves or say that their style of writing is what search engines love. They’ll use bully techniques by telling you, people doing their own marketing don’t know what they are doing and you’ll end up failing if you do it yourself. If those techniques don’t work, they’ll switch to the giving you the carrot, by pushing ads that try to hard sell you by saying you need to pay them to get the secret to gaining 100,000 Instagram followers right now and their online course is the absolutely only way you will ever possibly reach that goal.

Now, some of these marketers are wonderful people who know exactly what they are doing. Here’s the thing though, marketing your business or organization isn’t about what works for everyone else, it’s about what works for you. The problem with all these ninjas, bullies and promises of massive impact within seconds is that they start off by telling you exactly what you need instead of asking the question of what business objective you are looking to achieve. They are pushing solutions before they listen to your needs and help you to build a path that will work best for you and your business. While there are digital marketing techniques and methods that everyone can use their application and implementation is very specific to your particular needs and goals.

We don’t do that. And yes I said “We”. Even though I, Genevieve Coates, end up doing most of the work directly with my clients, I always use the term “We” when speaking about Generate Creative Consulting, in my website copy, on my social media accounts and about the work I do with clients. This use of “We” is not to make my business seem like it’s a fortune 500 brand or to be that person who arrogantly talks about themselves in the third person. My website speaks in the third person because when I work with someone, it is always a team effort. Whether that team consists of just me and the client or whether I listen and recommend others to work with my clients as well, it is always a team effort. The reason why I love working with the clients I do, providing the experience and advice I do and building the one to one relationships I have is because I truly believe that if we work together, helping each other in the specialities we are each experienced in, we can cause a shift in Atlantic Canada to make anything achievable.

So how do you wade through all the digital marketers out there? The same way you would hire any other person to work with your business. Review their work, their resume, talk to their past clients and then talk to them to see if it’s a good fit. If you are still feeling overwhelmed, bullied or uncomfortable with what is the right choice for you, then feel free to get in touch with me. I am always happy to sit down to talk so we can figure out what the best options there are for you and your business regardless if that option is working with me or someone else I might think would fit your needs better.