The death of my digital advertising agency was fueled by a harsh truth.
The truth is that many business owners have been “churned and burned” by supposed online gurus, marketing “experts”, and social media growth “teachers”.
The number of digital marketing agencies, experts and consultants has grown extravagantly over the past four years.
It seems that most normal platform users on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google and Youtube are completely aware of what paid ads are in 2019.
We are continuously pounded with ads on our social feeds. Internet searches and music streaming platforms, too.
Digital marketing spends alone in the past four years has increased a whopping 45 billion dollars from the years 2014–2018.
That caused a drastic increase in brands leveraging agencies. All in an effort to get their online presence up to par. This service is a common need among many businesses. People just like my team and I flocked to build our own agencies.
Everyone from millennials to traditional marketers jumped into digital advertising. Most to generate revenue in this new vector. And it created what I’d like to call a “gun-shy” market.
This essentially means that many business owners are scared to trust agencies with their money. It’s largely due to being hurt by other agencies in their past experience.
I’ve talked to so many business owners who have had a distasteful experience from other agencies.
This leads business owners to lose faith in the effectiveness of advertising their brand online. All of this due to agencies, experts and gurus mis-communicating what building your brand online takes.
Honestly, the industry is saturated and many people think they know how to properly run paid ads.
Especially on the major platforms like Facebook and Google, but its more difficult than it seems.
There are a million ways to lose money online, and it’s not as easy as boosting a post or putting $20.00 behind a video ad for a day. There are formulas, steps and processes to follow for yielding quality results.
For the handfuls of agencies, private consultants and experts out there who provide true value thank you, as you’ve taught our team a lot.
I see this next 1–2 years being a period where true marketers will innovate through the evolution of advertising online.
With all of this going down, my team and I decided to make a change. We decided to stop being a digital marketing agency.
What it means to us is that we aren’t your typical full service agency, we aren’t here to solve all of a companies marketing problems. We are here to do what we are good at which is different than most agencies. We focus on running high-quality video ads on the biggest social media and search platforms providing companies with the gift of ultimate brand awareness. The death of our agency led to the rebirth of our private marketing firm where we give brands their digital edge.
Innovation is the key to succeeding in a saturated market, and the truth is if you are not growing your dying.
Stick to your skills and do not bite off more than you can chew. Especially if you are having a high client turnover rate. If this is happening to you then take a look inside your business model.
As soon as our team realized what we were good at, we began to value our services and became fully confident in our work.
Through all of this one thing is for sure, your online presence does matter. As in this day and age its the accreditation of your business.
So please do yourself some due diligence and learn the power of marketing your company online. If your an agency owner and your services aren’t providing your clientele value then you are burning yourself in the long run.
It’s time for an era of integrity marketing, driven by building brands that have true impact on the world.
Skylar Lysaker
C.O.O of FG Marketing Co.