That’s right, I said it.
Inspired by this great cynical rant about the annoyances of the startup world, I thought it was about time someone did the same for the digital marketing industry. With 9 years spent working in it and no boss to tell me off, I thought I was suited to the task.
Like your swear words raw and uncensored? You are in luck! Click here for the original NSFW (Not Safe For Work) version of this post.
Tools
Fork your 30-minute demo of the latest must have tool that simply uses an API to control another tool that pulled information out of Google Analytics. I’m not interested and my lack of response to your email shows just that. Nobody in one role needs more than about 3-5 tools, unless you are Head of Tools, in which case go nuts!
Award Ceremonies
Fork your ever more obscure award ceremonies. I’m not suggesting the hard work us marketers complete isn’t worthy of some recognition. Nor am I suggesting that you’re practically guaranteed a nomination due to the number of awards and categories, especially if you’ve bothered to use one of the sponsors services or sponsor the awards yourself.
Those working in digital marketing have only one purpose: to use our creative talents, platforms, tools & insights to build relevance and influence in today’s online world. This should go on to create substantial results for the brands, products and services of our clients. We should ALL strive to do exactly that and don’t need a see-through trophy to tell us otherwise. trophy to tell us otherwise.
On that note, fork your out of date award nominations (or wins) STILL at the bottom of your email signature. It’s cringy guys. If it didn’t happen in the last 365 days then remove it and move on to winning the hearts of your clients.
Conferences
Fork your conferences where a speaker purports to reveal their secret sauce only for us to realise it tastes just like the tactics we’ve all have been using for the last 3 years.
Who are these forking people who are at EVERY SINGLE conference, wherever in the world? How do they have the time or budget resource to do that?
Digital Marketing Managers
Fork “Digital Marketing Managers” nowadays, seriously. Everybody is a forking Digital Marketing Manager now. Especially all those straight-out-of-uni-digital-marketing-managers. Just so you know- it’s called “experience”. Get some years behind you managing more than your own time and effort on one campaign. Then when you know the difference between CPA and ROI, apply to some managerial roles. Until then stop making people think that ANYONE can do digital marketing with or without experience and knowledge. You’re making it harder for people like me to gain the trust of clients!
New Agencies
Fork the never ending stream of new agencies entering the market. Each one with a quirky two-word, abbreviated or phonetically spelt brand name and a random domain suffix like “.digital” or “.co” (yes I know). You can’t possibly all do things differently. You haven’t all worked for Coca-Cola, Man United and the NHS. You are entering a saturated market. Try doing one thing very well instead of accepting every piece of work that comes your way, then shipping it off to a “satellite” team in Eastern Europe for a markup.
Google Guess Work
Fork a whole community of folks trying to second guess Google’s next update or actions. Quit it! You will never be ahead of them. Just build logical, usable, relevant websites and everything will turn out fine.
Misconceptions
Fork your misconceptions. Digital Marketing is NOT too expensive if you choose the right strategy and platforms. It is NOT only effective for certain industries and it CAN work for anyone. Data is your friend and ally. Test, test and then test some more. Analyse the data. Then make a decision of where to go / what to do next.
Google BFF’s
Fork your special relationship with Google. We get it. You joined one of their many partner programs. You make the behemoth yet more money than they already dont pay tax on. And now you get to visit their London offices for some free advice (that makes them more money btw). Then come out with a mug and some branded juggling balls to show to prove to your clients how you and big G are BFF’s.
Guaranteed Rankings
Fork those still professing to confidently “guarantee” SEO results or rankings. It is a third party controlled entity! If you really had the secret recipe to guarantee success, you would be a multi-billionaire fighting off lawsuits by Google. Not some overly friendly foreigner with a suspiciously cliche British name (e.g. John Smith) sending desperate strangely highlighted emails via a Gmail address!
Staff Turnover
Fork your high staff turnovers. Instead of treating staff to forced bonding trips and beanbags they’ll never use, try investing in some decent training programmes and give your staff a bit of credit once in a while. Share the wealth you make on their per hour / day rates with them and they may feel valued enough to stay past their one year anniversary.
Account Mis-Managers
Fork the bullshine merchant Account Managers pedalling marketing tactics they have no idea about. Whilst the poor executives sit back at the office waiting for client objectives to land that they will never achieve. Get your Account Managers to spend a week with your teams learning the ins and outs. Or let your the Do’ers attend client meetings and tell it how it is.
Jargon & Buzzwords
Fork the industry buzzwords, abbreviations and jargon. PPC, CPA, CTR, CRO, CPC, CPV, SEO, ROI, UX, YOY etc. Just explain things in laymans terms and your client won’t think you are blowing smoke up their ‘atrium’. They may even come away understanding enough to invest in your services next year.
Reporting
Fork the reports. Yes I said it. There is no point in spending time creating reports that a client doesn’t read. And then charging them for them! I write reports like the rest of you but I believe in letting the client decide if they want them and how they will look. And stop blaming “SEASONALITY”. It’s become a cliche that even the client sees through.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Fork the continually changing digital technologies. I think us digital marketers have the hardest job of all in Marketing. We have a constantly growing ecosystem and choice of channels, platforms, formats, tracking, demographics etc. I sometimes sit here and think “Can’t we just draw a line under what we’ve got?”. I mean Jesus, if you can make a mock tube map of anything, it’s gotten too big and complicated. Let’s agree to pause all technological evolution so that I and others can become damn good with what’s at my disposal right now. Deal…..? Great.
But more than all, digital marketing world, fork you for making me one of you.
Have a “fork you” to add to the list? Please be my guest and rant away in the comments below.