DMR #29: Sharon Latour – Why is digital marketing so gray to most people?

David:    Why is digital marketing so gray to most people? What are the best marketing tips for entrepreneurs? What are the current new technologies that SMEs should pay attention to? Those are just three of the questions that I intend to ask my special guest today Sharon Latour. Sharon, welcome to DMR. Sharon:    Thank you David. Thanks for having me. David:    Thanks for joining me. Sharon is CEO of a full service marketing agency called Marketing Bee, specializing in small business marketing. According to StartupSmart, she was one of the top 25 hottest entrepreneurs to watch in 2013. Sharon, what are the biggest marketing challenges that small businesses are facing at the moment? Sharon:    That's a great question David. From my perspective, the biggest gap that I can see at the moment in small businesses executing marketing very well and more specifically digital marketing is that there's a big gap between what they do online and the actual business vision and business strategy. What I mean by that is, they would go out and seek out a web developer or someone to work with, but there's a big lack of connection between the actual business vision and what it is that they're actually working on. I see a lot of people planning their social media presence or even their digital presence, so their website or digital branding, that kind of thing, with no reference at all to what it is that they're actually planning to achieve within zero to three months, three to six months, and six to twelve months of their business. I kind of see it as that being the biggest issue at the moment. The second biggest problem to me would be that we, unfortunately, in the last five years, we've seen a bit of a rise in a very under-regulated industry. It's very easy nowadays for someone to go do a course for half a day or a couple of hours a week and to become a digital marketer without actually having strong commercial knowledge. Small business with itsy-bitsy pieces of cash are going out there and seeking out the wrong professionals to execute their presence and their strategy. That's kind of the two main things that I see as a big gap in terms of how small business can benefit from the digital industry in general at the moment.