The Captain Coder Podcast

Everyone Finds Digital Marketing Overwhelming (And What to Do About It)

September 22, 2021 Marisa VanSkiver, Captain Coder Season 1 Episode 21
The Captain Coder Podcast
Everyone Finds Digital Marketing Overwhelming (And What to Do About It)
Show Notes Transcript

Want to hear a secret?

Everyone, at times, finds digital marketing overwhelming.

While in theory it sounds great to learn about social media marketing, video, content marketing, email marketing, websites, SEO, and more, what it can do is cause overwhelm.

There are so many options to choose from. There are so many opinions, so many methods, so many things changing every. single. second.

In today's episode, I'm going to talk you through why it's OK that you don't know everything and how to combat the overwhelm that comes with an industry that changes by the second.

I wanted to take a break from our normally scheduled program to share a short, but relevant message with you.

Over the last few months, I’ve shared lots of tips, strategies, and just general marketing information with you. While I’ve been doing this a long time (15 years or so), I certainly know a lot, but I don’t know everything.

And want to hear a secret?

Everyone, at times, finds digital marketing overwhelming.


If you don’t know already, I teach Digital Marketing as an adjunct at Wichita State. Each semester, I teach MBA students and juniors and seniors in the marketing department an overview class on various digital marketing tactics. Throughout the semester, we learn of the main avenues available to them, how those avenues work, and how to put a plan together, using the avenues that make the most sense for specific businesses.

While in theory it sounds great to learn about social media marketing, video, content marketing, email marketing, websites, SEO, and more, what it can do is cause overwhelm.

There are so many options to choose from. There are so many opinions, so many methods, so many things changing every. single. second.

Want to know what I tell my students in literally the third slide of my first lecture?

  • Nearly 60% of marketers don’t feel like we can keep up and only 16% feel like they have the technology to do their jobs (I bet that 40% of the ones who think they can keep up are lying about feeling like they can keep up)
  • The important thing to take from digital marketing is to be OK with the change; you can never know it all and that’s OK
  • Marketing is just testing. Digital just means we can tweak it more often (and cheaper) to find something that works

You Just Can’t Keep Up. And That’s OK.

The harsh truth when it comes to a career in digital marketing is that you’ll never be able to stay up to date with everything. If you build websites now, it’s great to learn the things that will help you build better websites. Sometimes that means learning about SEO, paid ads, Analytics, schema, and everything in between.

But you don’t need to know all of it in depth.

(This is literally me reminding myself right now)

Focus on the things you need. Pick a teacher you like (hopefully you like me OK!) and follow the people you feel you can trust. Do your best to tune out all of the other noise as much as you can and always fact check anything.

In fact, I’d highly recommend you even fact check my podcast episodes. They’ll hold up cause I do my research before I write anything, but still a good practice.

But most importantly, take a deep breath when you start to feel overwhelmed by it all and remember that you are not alone in feeling that way.

Digital Marketing is Just Testing

The other really important thing to remember? Digital marketing is really just testing.

It’s trying to make the best decision based on the information you have to hand at that moment in time, but you could be wrong. And that’s OK. Because the great thing about digital marketing is that it’s quick and generally cheaper to make tweaks to.

We’re not worried about something being in print, with expensive print costs or ad costs that we’re investing a ton of money into.

No, we’re dealing with digital tools that can be edited, tweaked, and changed as needed.

For example, I’ve had my podcast for about 6 months now. I built this website first, started blogging a bit, and started thinking through who I was talking to and how I would show up.

I’ve changed my strategies a little bit a few times. I’ve already made edits to this website.

It’s all so normal!

Marketing has always been testing, but now that we’re dealing with largely digital mediums it’s just much easier.

Anyone who tells you that you have to have all the answers up front, that you can’t “afford” to get it wrong is lying to you.

Sure, you want to have a solid understanding and strategy behind the decisions you make. And part of being able to do that is staying well informed. But there isn’t really ever one right answer in this industry. And there will probably always be a better answer.

Learn to be OK with that. Learn to love the learning process. Learn to soak up information from places you trust and tune out the rest. If you can learn to do that, you’ll be OK and you’ll go far.