Digital Marketing Coach is a relatively new term
Getting a digital marketing coach is a relatively new phenomenon. The term digital marketing is fairly broad so this article will, among other things, split out the different areas that could be covered within this term. We’ll also give some things to look for to help your selection process.
Learning to do digital vs outsourcing digital
You may be tempted to outsource the doing of a lot of your digital marketing to external agencies and there is certainly a place for this some technical skills you simply don’t need in-house on a full-time basis.
However we strongly believe that the heart of a great successful digital marketing program is when the skills are built into the business – rather than be dependent on an external resource until the end of time.
We have seen time and again that when you build-in a great new mindset and knowledge base into your business, the results are incredible. We’ve just seen a roofing company go from a handful of site visits to almost 300,000 and the results from there are a huge increase in sales – their big issue now is finding enough team members to satisfy all their new clients – hiring dozens of new roofers each month. We’ve seen the same in BtoB and various sectors from dental to insurance.
Digital marketing coach vs consultant
A useful first step is to define coaching vs Consultancy: A consultant will tend to do the work and tell you things to do whereas coaching is focused on building a skill set within the coaching individual or group so that they are able to complete all the tasks they need to find success on their own.
Full disclosure: as an agency we offer both services although we try not to simply implement work for clients but would rather they come along on the journey and grow their skills as we work with them. Why? Because by having them understand what we are doing they will support the process and the overall results will come sooner and be far greater. It’s almost magical when you see the team come together!
Specific Areas within digital marketing
A digital marketing coach will likely offer one or more of the areas shown here:
Search Engine Optimisation
Pay Per Click Advertising
Display Advertising
Search Engine Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Inbound (or Content) Marketing
Remarketing
Google Shopping
Further specialist areas may include:
Amazon Marketing
Hubspot
Answer these four questions to define the right digital marketing coach for you.
First question: Do you have a solid flow of engaging, useful content coming out of your marketing department? (at least three videos or articles per week)
Above all else, a flow of great content is the foundation for all the other work that can follow – all the technical SEO brilliance will be for nothing without Google and your audience seeing and engaging with your content. You must publish three articles each week to really see Google reward you.
If you answer ‘yes’ then go to question 2
If you answer ‘ no’ then this is your first issue to address and a digital marketing coach will be able to help.
Coach type required: Inbound Content Coach
The production of content is so fundamental that change here must come from the top of the organisation. A quarterly planning meeting with business leadership will then move out into weekly coaching sessions with individuals or teams in the business. The aim being to align sales and marketing around the core objective and have them work in new and optimal ways. It’s an incredibly exciting transformation!
A good content strategy will help but the most powerful one available today is contained in the book: ‘ They Ask You Answer’ by Marcus Sheridan. (Full disclosure: Here at The Ambitions Agency we have a Certified Coach for the method, Nick Burrage – so we may be biased!)
Other inbound Content coaches we found:
Profit Reach offer offer Inbound Marketing and Content Marketing training, workshops and courses to individuals, and groups across the UK
Kathryn Monkom offers coaching in SEO and inbound content
Second question: Is your content being optimised fully?
If you have achieved a great flow of content that is useful, honest, transparent and clearly engaging with your audience then the next step is to make sure that Google is seeing this and serving it to more and more people.
If you answer ‘yes’ go to question 3
If you answer ‘no’ then this is the first issue to address with the help of a digital marketing coach. They will be able to look at your SEO around your blogs and help increase your skills in either the writing or execution of blogs to maximise their impact on google.
Coach type required: SEO coach
Third question: Is your website working correctly?
The most important thing in Google terms here is that the website is very very quick to load. Google simply will not serve a slow website in search results. This is usually an area for specialist support rather than a digital marketing coach. The next thing to look at with your website is to check that it is marked-up correctly – the site map and the schema tags are all set correctly.
With all these technical elements in place the final question here is to ask if it is serving your audience well if it is easy to navigate and find the information they need quickly
If you answer ‘yes’ to all these then go to question 4
If you answer ‘ no’ then as mentioned above, this may well be an area for specialist support so let’s assume you get this nailed – move on to Q4 !
Fourth question: is your website part of a complete digital footprint in the eyes of Google?
Google has very strict rules here and they affect not just your website but all your digital touchpoints: Website, Google My Business, Social Platforms, YouTube etc. and how they are all linked to your Google Tag Manager. As an example of the incredible detail required here, if your opening hours differ on GMB and your website Google will notice and penalise you. (this means you will be quietly charged up to 4X more for any Google Ads then your better organised rivals ar paying)
If you answer ‘no’ then this is your area of focus with your digital marketing coach.
Coach type required: Google Footprint Coach
If you have answer ‘yes’ to this and the preceding questions then your requirement is for specific coaching in the final pieces of the puzzle – PPC, remarketing or some other niche skill set. This is a GREAT place to be, by the way – you are well on your way to huge success.
Coach type required: Specific area coaching e.g. PPC coaching
Free coaching resources
Hubspot’s blog is one of the world’s greatest resources for anyone approaching digital marketing
For those looking to develop great digital marketing skills the Impact Learning Centre is excellent
A personal note about finding a digital marketing coach.
My journey to becoming a coach started with me being just another confused business person – a marketing professional in fact! – wondering why their marketing was so… mediocre. My first step was to try to understand all the technical SEO side and eventually hire some amazing talent for the business to take care of it.
My next step was to hire a business coach! My coach, Steve Gaskell, introduced me to a whole world of learning and change and frankly I’ve never looked back. If you do nothing else then find a coach that does this for you.
The coaching I do tends to be based on teams more often than individuals and will deliver a unified inbound team and company-wide culture. Of course the results in sales measured in pounds and pence are vital but excitingly I get to see people transform the way they work together creating truly powerful, bonded teams and an inbound marketing culture that brings success and happiness. If you’d like to know more just be in touch.
