What Is The Cost of Not Investing in Digital Marketing? - Episode 17

Alex and I are going to discuss what the cost of not doing digital marketing is.

I would distill it down into two elements, right? So there's the immediate loss of revenue. So you're not getting sales. You've got a website that sells blue widgets. You're not doing any pay per click advertising. You're not doing any social media advertising. You're not doing any organic advertising. Obviously, nobody's finding you. Nobody's buying anything. I think there's also a kind of secondary cost that is really important to stress here, which is just that over time, you also lose market share, your brand's not going to grow. You're going to lose that market share to somebody else who is willing to invest in digital marketing. And I think that's something we see quite a lot with a lot of our clients, right? They'll come to us after ten years or so of not really doing anything online and say to us, you know, how do I build my brand? How do I get this attention? The honest truth is that if you've neglected your digital marketing for such a long time, it is a real uphill battle to kind of recapture the public's attention, if you like.

Okay. In the last podcast I spoke about, I say I because I did it on my own. I spoke about what the cost is of digital marketing. What's the cost of digital marketing, how much does digital marketing cost? And on the back of that, I had an idea to talk about what the cost of not doing digital marketing is. Um, so Alex and I are going to discuss that. And I'll start off by saying that we're not going to use this as a stick to beat people with. We're not going to say, you must do digital marketing or your business will collapse and your, um, life won't be worth living. I'm not going to say that. Oh, and I think your email's still on because I just heard a ping. Unless it was.

Yes, I know. I know I've just been allowed back on and here I am.

So when I suggested the subject to Alex about on the back of the podcast about costs, to do a podcast about the cost of not doing it. Alex immediately said, oh yeah, that sounds interesting. Why did it interest you?

Well, because, Dave, it provides us with an opportunity to talk about how you must employ digital marketing companies.

But we're not going to do that. Remember.

The seas will turn red and the frogs will rain down from the sky. Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's interesting because I think it's one of those things that, like you say, you know, if you Google that question, and I think it's a question a lot of business owners will probably have, you know, what happens if I don't do digital marketing? You will be bombarded with thousands of articles talking about how you must employ digital marketing agency. All the world will end. And I think it's really important for us to just kind of sit a little bit and talk about that kind of idea. You know, what, what does happen if people just don't bother to do this stuff? There is definitely kind of a things that you'll lose out on by not doing it, but the world won't end. And I think it's kind of really important for us to just be open and honest about that, I guess.

Yeah for sure. I mean, a lot of businesses rely on networking organisations like, for example, BNI Business Network International, which in the dim and distant past I've attended on behalf of Red evolution. And it was great. It's a business network and you get to meet lots of great people who then give you referrals and you give them referrals. And it's a proven way of generating business. So if you're in the kind of business and it didn't work particularly well with tradespeople, if you're in the kind of business where word of mouth is the most powerful way of finding new business, and actually a lot of businesses tick that box, don't they? One way or another.

Yeah, definitely.

But if you're in that line of work, then yeah, you don't, you might have a very simple squarespace Wix type website that cost you virtually nothing that you threw together yourself that outlines who you are, what you do. and that's kind of all you need. You don't really need to make any sort of significant investment in digital marketing.

And then I think there's also businesses that kind of do rely still on, on very traditional marketing, print marketing and that kind of thing. Right? There are a few less, I think, as the years go by. But, you know, it is possible to sustain some types of business just, you know, by taking out magazine adverts and hiring billboards and that kind of thing. But I do think for most businesses nowadays, the that that digital arena, the, the internet, Google search, all of those things is where you're doing most of or acquiring most of your new business, right? Mhm. Increasingly. So.

Yeah, I'd say so. And I guess, I guess also we need to think about what actually constitutes digital marketing because, you know, if you're, for example, if you're actually not active on social media, then you're missing a digital marketing opportunity, even though you might not view that as digital marketing.

Yeah, absolutely. And things like email. And I guess, you know, in a in a wider way, you know, it's things like having a CRM, which is a customer relationship management tool and doing all that good stuff is, is kind of integral to running a successful business nowadays. So yeah, I think, I mean, how would you define digital marketing then? Because that is a very that seems like a very loaded question, doesn't it? That seems like the kind of thing that get people writing in and saying, oh, well, actually.

Yeah, well, yeah, maybe we'll park that for, for and see if somebody does write in and ask the question for us, you know, to define it. And then we'll maybe attack that. Um, so, but for now, um, we'll just let that, let, let that hang in the air perhaps. So if our subject today is what is the cost of not doing digital marketing again, without this coming across as a stick to beat people with. So we just want to be very subjective about it, I suppose. Do we or is it objective? You may always get it wrong.

We're going to try to be objective. Inevitably we will be subjective and lots of people will probably be crossed with this..

Okay, so if you, for example, let's just explore, um, explore websites, okay. So the cost of not doing digital marketing in the context of not having a website, or rather not having a website that's more than a few pages, like a little brochure saying, this is who we are, this is what we do. So the cost of not taking that further and actually filling the website with content that people are looking for, the how to's, the questions they ask, the advice they're looking for, etc. then the cost of not doing that is that you don't appear in search results when people type things into Google. It's that simple, isn't it?

I think well, I mean, I think there are two elements to it. The first is, as you say, if you don't publish that kind of how to content that content that answers people's questions, then yeah, sure, you're not going to rank in Google. People won't find your website. I think there's a secondary kind of cost to not doing that work as well, which is that when people do, you know, if by some miracle, they manage to stumble across your website some other way, they're going to land on a site that isn't convincing at all. Right? It doesn't tell them you're an expert. It doesn't fill them with confidence in your brand. It doesn't make them think, oh, these are the guys I should buy my blue widgets, paint or whatever. We're whatever we're selling today. Um, you know, people are going to land on your site. They're going to see a lot of very thin content and they're going to think, oh, these guys don't really know. Oh.

Stop, stop, stop already. Thin content. Explain.

Thin content is content that well, it's content that doesn't do its job right. It's content that is too thin or shallow or lacking in detail to either rank well in search results pages or convince people that you know what you're talking about.

Can I fix that for you?

You can. Yeah. Please do.

I think I think in plain English. Thin content is like, for example, if you've got a page that's, um, about a specific service that you offer and you tell the story in like a couple of paragraphs. So the page has got like, you know, less than one hundred words on it. Then that's in search, marketing, digital marketing terms, what might be termed might be called thin content. Is that correct?

Yeah, absolutely. That was a much better explanation. Um, yeah.

I don't know if it was better, but it used plain English.

Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean essentially that's it isn't it. That's exactly it. If you don't give people enough information and enough detail, they're going to land on your site, you know, assuming that they found you and they're going to think, meh, this isn't for me or this isn't convincing me and they're going to go elsewhere.

They still might give you a call. We're not saying they wouldn't give you a call.

No, but we are saying that you've kind of raised the the barrier of entry, if you like. You've made it that little bit harder to persuade them to give you a call.

Yeah, and you've made it harder for them to find you in the first place.

So it's a double edged sword, really not investing in kind of populating your website with useful and decent content means you don't get found. And when people do find you, they care less.

So it's kind of a double edged blunt sword.

Yeah, it's it's a generally bad idea.

It's got two useless blades. Okay. All right. So if you've got a very basic website and you're not prepared or you don't want to invest and make it more comprehensive, more of a resource than just a brochure, then you're not doing that aspect of digital marketing. And the price you pay for that is a lack of visibility in the search engines. Simple as that.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And then I guess the I guess there are ways of marketing your website without doing that though, right? Like say you want to neglect content marketing completely and just put all your eggs in the basket of, say, social media marketing or paid paid search advertising. I was going to say PPC and then realised I get smacked with a ruler. Um, yeah, you know, it is possible to market your website, not using content marketing, right? I guess there's also a cost to not doing that or.

Okay. So what we're saying is you do not have to have a comprehensive website that you have toiled over or paid somebody else to toil over in order to make your business visible. There's other ways of doing it, and that is using social media marketing, social media advertising, and things like Google ads, the adverts that appear at the top of a Google search search results page.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I guess we see that all the time, don't we? Like, I don't know, the first example that springs to mind for me is like, you know, all those dropshipping businesses where people sell kind of watches or, or jewelry and it's just, you know, it's literally just a landing page that they market through Facebook and that's where all of their revenue comes from. But I think that's very hard to do for most businesses, isn't it? You can't rely on one of those channels and not kind of invest in a decent website.

Yes. But if your business is in a really competitive market, where to try and get visibility in the search engines is going to require you to spend a fortune developing an amazing website with tons and tons of content, then using paid search where you can literally have a one page website, as long as that one page website can convince people to get in touch, fill in a form, buy something off you, then that can be effective. Um, and you don't need to be found in organic search for that. You can be found like, like we've already said using social media advertising, um, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google ads remarketing. There's a whole range of tools that we could use for that. So although we've established the cost, if you like, of not building a decent website, is that you will not get eyeballs visibility, you will not be found by your ideal customers. There are other things we can do, but those other things that we can do that we're discussing now are also digital marketing. So if you don't do them, I know we're stating the bloody obvious here, but if we don't do that either because we're talking about the price of not doing it, then you're going to get zero visibility online. This podcast is going to be over really quickly, isn't it?

There are two. I would distill it down into two elements, right? So there's the immediate loss of revenue. So you're not getting sales. You've got a website that sells blue widgets. You're not doing any pay per click advertising. You're not doing any social media advertising. You're not doing any organic advertising. Obviously, nobody's finding you. Nobody's buying anything. I think there's also a kind of secondary cost that is really important to stress here, which is just that over time, you also lose market share, right? So if you're not there at the forefront of people's kind of, I don't know, I don't know what the right word for that is. If you're not right in front of people all the time.

You're in front in their front of mind. If they, if you're not front of mind. Yeah, maybe.

Yeah, that's exactly it. Your brand's not going to grow. You're going to lose that market share to somebody else who is willing to invest in digital marketing, who is willing to kind of pay the price, if you like, of appearing in front of people consistently enough to turn into the, the go to brand for that thing. Um, and I think that's something we see quite a lot with a lot of our clients, right? They'll come to us after ten years or so of not really doing anything online and say to us, you know, how do I, how do I build my brand? How do I get this attention? And the honest truth is that if you've neglected your digital marketing for such a long time, it is a real uphill battle to kind of recapture the public's attention, if you like.

Okay, so we've kind of stated the obvious that if you don't have a strong website, you won't get found. That's the price you pay for not doing that part of digital marketing, right? If you then don't pay for Google ads paid search, you don't pay for attention and send that traffic. If you like those clicks to a one page website, a landing page, you're also paying the price there by, you know, by not making that investment. But what you just said is that ultimately, if you finally recognise that you are going to have to jump in and start doing all this stuff, then you are making the job a lot harder the longer you leave it. And there's a danger there that we're making this sound like a stick to beat people with. And that isn't. The point. It's not the point. It really isn't. I mean, I think all we're trying to say is, um, and we've said this in some previous podcasts and I've been saying it for far too long, you know, you're always six to nine months, sometimes twelve months away from finding new customers online. So if you start in six months time, you're still, you know, six to twelve months away in six months time. So, you know, the longer you put it off, potentially the harder it's going to get.

Yeah, I think that's exactly it. I mean, you know, at the risk of kind of oversimplifying it, I think the cost of doing digital marketing is, you know, inevitably you are going to have to pay this cost at some point, right? I don't think anybody either listening to this or, you know, between us is, is in any doubt of the fact that, you know, increasingly in the future, people will be reliant on digital marketing to reach their target audience. So at some point in time, you are going to have to pay to market your brand to the public. And the longer you put it off, the longer you go kind of not doing any work, the more you allow other businesses to encroach on your kind of, I guess, to use a word you say.

And then you did. You said encroach, didn't you? Have you been smoking something funky?

Um, no, I would never.

I think you meant to say encroach, but you actually said enroach and I just thought that was quite good.

You know, we talk a lot about share of voice. At the risk of being smacked with that ruler. Again, we talk about share of voice in the sense that there's a limited amount of times that people will kind of tolerate a new brand kind of appearing in front of them and advertising something that somebody else has advertising. You don't want a situation where other people are the go to brands for whatever you're selling. So the longer you put it off, I think the harder it gets, the more expensive it becomes, right?

Yeah. But are we really saying that for a business, pretty much for any business to survive, that there need to be doing some element of digital marketing. Are we really saying that?

I think, well, I think you can count the kind of businesses that flourish without any sort of digital marketing. On one hand nowadays. I mean, everybody needs it for, for something, right? You look very you look unconvinced.

I'm not unconvinced. I'm keen to make sure that we're not looking at this with blinkers on because digital marketing is what we do. And we see the power of doing digital marketing at least doing it well. But there, there will definitely be businesses out there who don't have a website. They're not active on social media. They've just worked really hard in all the offline channels. So business networking and meeting people, asking existing customers for referrals, etc. maybe even things like, you know, like leaflet drops and all of the more traditional ways of getting a message, telling a story to strangers, people who don't know you exist. So there will be people out there who are doing that, I'm sure, and doing it really successfully. And are we really saying that they'll eventually just have to succumb? And when they do, it's going to be even harder? Or do we think that maybe there are businesses who can survive without digital marketing for now?

Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting, isn't it? I mean, I don't know what the exact stat is, but, you know, I think I've read somewhere that it does take people spend literally like two or three hours a day on social media nowadays, right? And that number is growing over time. I think that, you know, in ten years time, pretty much everybody will get most of their information from the the internet and online source of some sort. I can't see a world where business, networking and kind of talking to your peers is enough in the long term. But maybe that, like you say, maybe I've just been mired in this industry for so long that I'm utterly convinced of its relevance and importance, when in actual fact, there are other, better ways of of doing.

I think, you know, I've got a few years on you, and I guess my view is slightly different, I think. I think there are some businesses that can thrive and shine without necessarily investing in, in the stuff that we do and the stuff that agencies like us do. Um, I think perhaps most of them would also benefit from doing digital marketing, but I recognise that, um, costs, which we spoke about in the last podcast can seem excessive, prohibitive, whatever. They just simply don't have the money to pay somebody else to do it. And, and neither do they have the time to learn how to do it themselves. But I certainly- Um. Go on, go on. Sorry.

I was gonna say: it's interesting though, isn't it? Because I think, yeah, I agree with you. I think it's definitely possible for some types of businesses to survive without any online marketing. Thrive, I guess, is maybe a slightly different kind of idea. Um, the other thing I'd say though, is do you not think that even for those businesses that can kind of thrive offline, there is a danger that if they don't do anything online, somebody else will just kind of steal all of that audience from them.

Yeah. There is. Um, but here's a thought that just came to me. Um, as everybody, including his or her dog starts to appear online, is it not just getting so noisy online that people give up? We have spoken in the past about how utterly shit some of the results are that Google serves up. Still, despite how great Google is and how clever they are, and the other ones like duck, duck, go, etc. but they still serve up utter garbage and people then pick up the phone or get onto a WhatsApp group, uh, or jump onto their Facebook page or whatever and say, hey, can anybody help me with this? I could really do to talk to somebody about fixing this or buying this or something like that, because, you know, because the web is just so full of noise and bullshit that people are sort of will might eventually just turn their back on it. So all of this investment is for nothing.

I think it's interesting, isn't it? Because this brings to mind that stat about email marketing, right? It's that twenty one percent of marketing emails get opened now, which is appalling. Right? We've, we've kind of bombarded people so much with shitty marketing emails that they've just kind of stopped listening and stopped even opening them in the first place. I think you're right. There is a danger that, you know, kind of some of that is becoming a little oversaturated. But I think, I don't know, maybe maybe it is because I'm blinkered. I think personally, that this is the only way that things will be done in the future. I don't think you can really kind of avoid the fact that digital marketing is a growing industry, that people are kind of moving online instead of offline.

I don't I don't disagree with that. And clearly that's how we make a living, but I do worry that, as you rightly said, I mean, you give marketers a tool and ultimately they'll break it or ultimately they'll make it useless because they'll break it. I mean, um, I guess they've done it with everything. TV ads, for example, if you have enough money, you can put your message in front of a massive audience. Still. You can still do that. Yeah. Um, but like the range and quality of advertising on, on TVs is, is huge. Some utterly appalling adverts that you just can't believe you've just watched. And then some stunningly brilliant adverts that really do make you feel positively, um, disposed, predisposed towards the, the brand that they're representing. But I do wonder that, you know, when we're talking about investing in digital marketing, we are a lot of the time talking about investing your website, build your website out, you know, write great blog posts, start a podcast, all of that stuff. And if that environment is just becoming clogged and increasingly noisy, then can we hand on heart, say it's a fantastic investment?

Yeah, it's a funny one, isn't it? Because I think, you know, both of us will remember a time when it was much easier to market online for sure, because there was a much lower kind of barrier to entry. There was less noise, there were less people doing the same thing, and you didn't have to do quite so much work to stand out. Um, sorry. You wanted to say something.

I wasn't no, no, I was just biting my fingernails. I shouldn't, but I was.

Um, but yeah, no, um, I think that's definitely true. Like it's getting harder and harder. I think personally for me that means, you know, now, you know, now more than ever, that means invest in doing clever stuff instead of just the marketing stuff. I mean, you know, you just said then kind of invest in your brand, invest in your website, invest in a podcast, look at video marketing. Don't just try and do what everyone else is doing, which is kind of like churning out blog posts now and then or writing something meaningless on social media. You certainly do have to be smarter now than you did before. But I think that's the point really, isn't it? It's just like now is the time to get clever with it, rather than just kind of doing the same old, same old.

Yeah, I mean, you spoke about email marketing a short while ago, and I think it's getting increasingly difficult to be clever with email marketing. As you said, the open rates are really low. It's a it's a tool that has been utterly and completely abused to death and actually made, to a certain extent, made email communications between you and I. For example, uh, trickier because genuine communications get lost in amongst all of the crap that comes through, no matter how good your spam software is, you know, and the spam software in actual fact is meaning that, I mean, I sent a proposal to, um, to somebody yesterday and I can see that they still haven't opened it. Um, yes. Now I can see that they still haven't opened it because of another tool that marketers use, which is being closed down by the latest Apple updates. And that's, you know, pixels in emails that actually give you information about when an email was opened. But this is actually sent through an online tool. And I can see that he hasn't opened it. And I'm thinking there's a good chance that that's gone into his spam because it kind of looks a bit suspicious because it was sent by an automated machine. And, you know, we've actually broken email, you know, as a result of going off topic here. But I guess what we're talking about is, you know, what happens if you don't invest in digital marketing and where email marketing is concerned, although it's supposed to be still very effective. That's one I think, which is on the brink of becoming pretty much obsolete. Maybe one day, maybe quite soon.

Yeah, I mean, I'm going to take things like slightly further off topic now and just say that I think this is reflected in a lot of the stuff that we don't do for clients, right? So we're not as enthusiastic about social media marketing, I think for exactly the same reason because Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, they're also oversaturated with companies trying so hard to be noticed that it's kind of it feels a little bit pointless sometimes for a lot of the brands we work with to say, oh, well, you know, you should post on Facebook three times a day because ultimately it's just adding to this kind of wall of noise that everybody's ignoring. If people if marketers overuse tactics to the degree that people learn to tune them out, we are a will eventually run out of tactics. But B, you know, they're just not useful anymore. They're not a good way to reach people. And I think the other thing that's interesting, just to pick up on your point about Apple and the pixel thing, is that more and more we're seeing kind of regulators, if you like, telling marketers not to do things anymore because we are overdoing it so much. I mean, the same is true of this whole thing about cookies, right? So Google talked about cookies, not biscuits, but actual kind of little bits of code in your web browser that tell people where you've been moving around online, what websites you've been looking at, that kind of thing, and Google talking about ditching them in the future because people have become so sick and tired of marketers kind of following them around the internet and bombarding them with adverts for things. So yeah, I think you know, you're right, we are kind of oversaturating a lot of channels.

Yeah, I agree, and I suppose if we're talking about what is the cost of not doing digital marketing, then one of those costs, if you like, which is a negative cost. He said tying himself in knots. But if you're not involved in all that, if you're not involved in all of that nonsense, then it's possible that you can play on that. You can play on the fact that you are not don't have a website, you know, you can play on that. And so when you're actually meeting people, you give them a card or you give them some information and, and they'll say, look me up online and you say, I'm not, it's just noisy. I don't trust it or whatever you what language you want to use, but you can maybe just make a virtue of the fact that, hey, you know, this is an exclusive offer to you. I'm talking to you. Here's my contact information and contact me directly and we'll talk about doing business together. And it's more personal than this whole idea of trying to connect with complete strangers to solve problems and buy, buy goods and services online. Uh, yeah, I'm going down a rabbit hole here, I know.

Are you arguing, Dave, on our podcast, Digital Marketing From The Coalface, that digital marketing may not work for everyone? No. I mean, one hundred percent, I think. Let let's be one hundred percent clear and honest about this. Absolutely. That kind of thing will work for some businesses. I think it's fair to say that that's a vanishingly small minority though, right? Like you kind of talking here about businesses that can get by, you know, on the power of the occasional face to face meeting versus businesses that can flourish by, like you just said, answering strangers problems, getting in front of people, being, you know, open about the fact that they have solutions and insights to share with people. I think by and large, for most of the people listening to this who are running a business, your business is going to fit into the latter category. Most people kind of need an ever expanding audience in order to grow their business. And for that, the web is the only place you can really turn.

If I worked at global, for example, who are, you know, like the national or even international radio station conglomerate, then they might argue that, no, you do not need a website, you just need a fantastic radio advert.

Yeah. That mentions your website at the end of it.

Along with a long blurb with all the terms and conditions, which makes you turn off when you listen to the advert so you actually forget who the advert was for.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny, isn't it? Radio advertising is like the print. I was talking to a journalist a couple of days ago about this, that, you know, the whole idea of radio advertising is that you can reach people, but you can't really tell who you're reaching or how you're reaching them. Um, and radio is like we were just saying, very oversaturated with, with kind of random messaging, isn't it that people just learn to tune out. Um, I think there's still a lot to be said for, for digital as a channel that can kind of reach past that and be much more specific. Um, but yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? We are at risk of becoming radio advertising, I guess, in the future.

Yeah, potentially. I mean, clearly I'm playing devil's advocate in order to try and explore in a, in a fair minded way, uh, whether or not or what, what is the real cost of not doing digital marketing? And I'm coming at it from the point of view that perhaps it's possible to survive in the twenty first century without doing digital marketing and to actually, as I said previously, to thrive and shine. But, uh, I think where we're getting to is that the true cost of not doing digital marketing is that you will inevitably be missing opportunities. You might still do well, you might still make a good living and you might not care and you might everything might be great in your world, but there's every chance. In fact, there's a slim chance that you are getting all the opportunities that are out there for your business. I mean, you know, you're pretty much guaranteed that you're going to be missing opportunities, aren't you?

Yeah. Like, I would almost make it a challenge, right? To anybody listening to this, find a keyword research tool like SEMrush or Google keyword Planner. And, you know, find me a business where nobody is searching online for that service or product. It's not going to happen. People always turn to the internet first. Nowadays you need something, you Google it. And if you're not there to be found on the first page of Google for those, those terms that people are using to try and find businesses, you are leaving money on the table. I mean, I think that is really, you know, we can talk kind of broadly about the reputational damage and we can talk about lost share of voice and lost market share. But ultimately that is the point, isn't it? There is money on the table to be seized right now. And if you're not doing digital marketing.

Yeah, I agree and, and I think if, if, if we were talking to somebody, somebody and they said, you know, I don't want to do this, I don't want to invest in my website because nobody actually searches for what I do using Google or other search engines, then it's very easy to figure out whether that's true or not. And like you said, ninety nine times out of one hundred, using some of the tools that are available to us, we can do some very quick research and say, well, you know, last month this many people in the UK typed this particular search query into Google. And these are the people who they found as a result of that, could you have provided any of those people with the services or products that they were looking for and that usually, you know, that usually makes people aware, at least aware of the opportunities that they're missing. But yeah, I'll keep saying it. I think it is possible to survive without doing it.

Well, I think that's exactly it, isn't it? I mean, we you know, the great strength of digital marketing is that it allows you to reach an absolutely massive audience and to be very specific about the audience you want to reach. I think without all of that, you can absolutely run a flourishing business. Sure. Like there are definitely ways not to use it. It just I guess as a digital marketer, it seems foolish to me to not be using it because look at all the opportunity that's out there. Um, but I guess that's the thing. We have a perspective, don't we?

That's right. Well, I mean, hopefully, um, as we draw this to a close, hopefully, um, we haven't used um, this as a stick to beat people with. I think we've been quite fair handed in the way we've looked at it. You know, I think we've agreed that it's very likely that you're missing opportunities if you do not do digital marketing. We've agreed that the longer you leave it, then the harder it's going to be to catch up and get your brand, your business in front of people because your competitors are doing it, which all starts to sound a bit like we're beating people with a stick again, but just being realistic really. But, um. Anything else?

No, I think that's the those are the main points really, aren't they? Yeah. Okay. You say it is possible to to survive without it. Thrive on the other hand, that's for sure.

Okay. Well this is um Digital Marketing From The Coalface. If you've got any digital marketing questions that you want to ask the team who are actively involved in helping businesses find new customers, etc. online, go on the contact tab and send us a question and we'll either answer it. You can be anonymous and we'll answer the question, or you can even come on the show and ask the question and talk to us about it. People can't see when you're nodding, Alex. They can only hear you. Okay, I think we'll sign off. Bye for now.