Digital Horizons

Why DIY Advertising Could Be Holding Your Business Back

• James Walker & Brian Hastings

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What’s the real cost of doing your own advertising? Get ready to discover why self-managed campaigns might be the anchor dragging down your business growth. Brian and James, with over two decades in the marketing industry, share why DIY advertising often leads to missed opportunities and inconsistent results. By not engaging experts, you could be sacrificing potential sales and new clients that far outweigh the savings on agency fees.

Join us as we break down the top five reasons why your time is better spent on core business activities rather than trying to navigate the complexities of ad campaigns. From the pitfalls of inconsistent campaign management to the opportunity costs of not leveraging professional expertise, this episode is packed with insights on how to achieve sustained growth. Learn why focusing on your strengths and outsourcing your marketing efforts can be a game-changer for your business.

The Digital Horizons Podcast is hosted by:

James Walker - Managing Director Walker Hill Digital
Brian Hastings - Managing Director Nous

Speaker 1:

You need to stop doing your own advertising right now.

Speaker 2:

Every day we're dealing with business owners who are getting great results and the biggest thing that we found with them is that their business has started taking off when they stopped doing their own advertising. We're going to run through a list of reasons why it is not in your best interest, even though it might be saving you money, but it's not going to be helping you or your business achieve the growth goals that you're trying to get to.

Speaker 1:

That's right. It might be a cash saving. But that you're trying to get to, that's right, Might be a cash saving, but there's an opportunity lost. This is Digital Horizons. I'm Brian and this is James.

Speaker 2:

We both run and own marketing agencies and have been in the industry for over 20 years each. This channel is for people who want to learn about what's working now the latest tools, tactics, trends and strategies that we find are working within our base of clients every day.

Speaker 1:

But today it's about what you shouldn't be doing.

Speaker 2:

That's right and I mean we don't want to be negative about the way that people are structuring their marketing and advertising. But it happens all the time and we see it all the time is that business owners they come to us and they're like, hey, leo, I was getting some great results and then now I'm not, or whatever. They're not able to keep it consistent and they're probably not even scratching the surface of the results they could actually be getting if they engage with a professional to be able to do them advertising for them.

Speaker 1:

That's right. What we typically see is not necessarily not saving money by not paying agency fees, but what they're really missing out on is the potential if they knew these platforms like the back of their hand, what they could be getting if they grew and developed their campaigns in the best possible way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, A massive opportunity cost. It's like you might be doing, might spend. You know I'll just do my own marketing for the next six months and then to save some money because I don't want to engage a freelancer or an agency or whatever. But the actual opportunity cost of all those missed sales, those new clients that you could have picked up, all that revenue you could have generated, is going to far outweigh the little bit you're going to save from actually engaging a professional or actual expert in marketing that is able to get you the results. So today we're going to cover off on five things that we're seeing, and this is number one.

Speaker 1:

Number one your time is better spent doing what you do best. What do we mean by that? Typically, if you're in the role of a business owner or a senior marketer, you're not supposed to be proficient at running campaigns in multiple platforms. It's just not what you were trained to do. It's not where your skill set typically lies, unless you are running a digital agency.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, you didn't get into business to be an advertiser, right? You didn't start your business. Whatever your business is about, I'm sure that, unless you're in advertising, I'm sure that the reason you got into business was not to do advertising, just like it's not to do accounting and all your books and all that other stuff that are a function of the business. But it's not your core skill and it's not why you're in your business. Your time is just better spent doing that, so you can be great and continue doing the thing that you're great at and then not wasting your time spent on doing other parts that are probably not going to be anywhere near the quality that you need to be at.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, other areas of your business will suffer because you're not there working on them. And if you're in the marketing team, other components of your marketing will suffer because you're spending too much time down in the weeds in campaign metrics, setups, optimization, trying to get the most from your paid campaigns.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Number two is as soon as you start getting busy, you're going to stop doing it right. So as soon as that, you might get a little bit of success with it. You might set up a Facebook campaign, you might start getting a bit of traffic or run some lead forms and start generating a few inquiries. But the next thing that's going to happen and we see this over and over again is and I mean, I've done it in my own businesses as well is the moment you start getting busy, you stop doing it, and so then you're doing the work, and then you've got a big gap that you need to fill, because then you haven't got that consistency of leads, so your inquiry stopped coming in. Then you're like, oh shit, I've got to do something again, and then you start marketing again. There's no consistency there.

Speaker 1:

I would say in paid digital campaigns as well. It is so important that you're consistently optimising these campaigns, monitoring your budget, pacing, expanding and growing them. If you treat this like the type of campaign where you can just get it up and running and then you stop focusing on it, you're going to see poor performance. So, number three it's always going to be the last thing on the to-do list. Deprioritize, right Kind of ties into the thing before where you likely stop. What we mean by this is you've got better things to be focused on. If you're confident that the campaigns are ticking along at an okay level, you're probably going to put it last on the list and your client needs or your other burning fires are going to bubble to the top.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think that's something that I find on pretty much everything that's bottom of my list in terms of priorities is I'm going to half-ass the job. I'm not going to get it done properly. You're going to do just the minimum amount that you feel is hopefully going to get you some results, which again going to cost you money, going to be that opportunity cost of actually getting a good job done and generating some actual results. So it's going to be lowest priority and it's also going to be probably not done at the level of quality that you're even happy with. It's just something's being done, Again not going to get the results you're after.

Speaker 1:

Of course, two agency owners are going to be sitting here saying you should outsource the paid campaign activity that you're running, but we're both in agreement on this. Every campaign we see run in-house or run by the business owner has wasted more money than our fees would have cost. It is absolutely imperative that the campaigns are structured well, that they're optimized continuously and that there are safeguards put in place so you're not wasting budget. So, number four it won't be done to the quality of someone who's dedicated to doing it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love this one because I think this is definitely a small business mindset thing and I mean, again, I went through it.

Speaker 2:

We've had clients come to us and they'll be like, oh yeah, we did Facebook ads and my neighbor's kid who knows the internet and Facebook was doing them and we didn't really get the result we're after. So now we're looking to maybe pay somebody to get it done a little bit better. I think that the expectation of what is involved to actually get good results on it is quite low, because they just see it as oh, it's just Facebook, it's just social media. It doesn't require a high level of expertise to do it. But it's completely not the case. It's a much more competitive landscape and the ability to get results is so much harder than what it was years ago, when you could basically just put up an ad for anything and you'd be able to start seeing some performance happening, and so you definitely need somebody who's actually spending the time in it. They're understanding the platform, they're learning and they're continually evolving their skillset, because the platforms are continually evolving as well.

Speaker 1:

I think digital marketing, and specifically paid campaigns, suffers a perception that there's such a low barrier to entry that anyone can do it. If you consider the other services professional services, where you would need a senior level expert to support your business in you're not going to do any of those things yourself. You're going to go to your lawyer when you need contracts done up or when you need a response to some legal matters. You're going to go to your accountant when it comes time for tax compliance. If you're picking a builder, you want someone who's certified, who's done it before, who's got a good track record of building quality outcomes. If you look at the way advertising is treated, it feels like it's a little side hobby or a thing that they kind of get interested in themselves. It needs to be elevated to that level of. I want a high quality outcome. I need someone who's experienced at this, a specialist who knows what they're doing. I wouldn't want anything less touching my brand in these platforms 100%.

Speaker 2:

You know what the problem is, and this is an industry-wide problem because there is every one of those different industries you said or professions you said. They have governing bodies that you literally have to have and certifications. There is a whole bunch of stuff you need to be able to complete to be able to deliver these services Advertising I can watch a few YouTube videos and I can sell services legally to anybody in the world, blow all their budget, waste all their money, tank their business and there's no repercussions because it was just like oh well, I knew a little bit more than the next person, so I was able to sell them services, but there was nothing there to say. And when people come to us, you know, like even a lot of clients that come to us, they don't ask oh, you know, are your people on your team certified in Facebook? And they all are, but that question doesn't get raised because you just think that, oh yep, they know how to do this thing. All right, well, I guess they'll be good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, if you can be bothered putting it on your website. You must be proficient.

Speaker 2:

Yes, sort of aligns you somehow and then you're an expert on it, like it's just. I think that there needs to be a lot more qualifications and a lot more governing bodies around what we do, because it should be taken much more seriously what it is, because it's not.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think that's an industry problem, not necessarily the client problem.

Speaker 2:

A little bit off track here, but that's a rant.

Speaker 1:

But we need to get better at that, and I think clients need to expect more from who they're picking as a specialist Do your research Well. Number five really ties in with exactly what we're just talking about in point number four. There are people who focus on this every day. It's their specialization, it's their top priority. Why would you want to try to do this yourself when there's experts who are running multiple campaigns and experienced across the board, across multiple industries, and up to date in what each platform offers and its capability? Basically, there's people out there who are way better at this than you could ever be. So use the experts to get the most out of your advertising. 100% agree.

Speaker 2:

I hope you like this new Shorter Form episode that we're trying to do. We're really hoping to provide a lot of value and take some of the learnings that we're finding every day in terms of we deal with small business owners and business owners who have run into these mistakes before, and we're hoping that we can provide the information that's going to help you get ahead of your marketing and business goals faster.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you. That's Digital Horizons for this week. We'll see you next week. Thanks for listening, thank you.