Imagine expecting a commercial real estate developer to fix a gourmet dinner … or a plumber to heal a broken leg … or your mailman to design aircraft parts.

These scenarios probably won’t end well.

The same holds true for small businesses wanting to implement effective marketing strategies. They need expertise in a variety of specialties to ensure a competitive standing:

▪  A webmaster to build and maintain a website.

▪  A videographer to produce videos that promote your services on your website and in pay-per-click ads.

▪  A prolific writer.

▪  An SEO consultant to monitor, report and improve a website’s search results.

▪  A marketing consultant to orchestrate promotional efforts.

Yet all too often, small-business owners expect their webmaster to be a proficient SEO expert, pay-per-click advertising consultant and even marketing coordinator.

The vast majority of webmasters do not have years of daily copywriting experience. They may have taken (at most) one college marketing class. Conversely, marketing experts typically aren’t experienced website programmers. And webmasters, SEO and marketing experts usually aren’t proficient in video production.

Don’t get me wrong — websites do require tech support, like servers and programming. Most of the rest has nothing to do with IT.

Yet social media, video production, graphic arts, written content development, emails, pay-per-click ads and SEO aren’t “digital marketing” either. They’re tools and strategies to help successfully promote a business’s product or service.

Your website is designed to convert visitors into customers. Once it’s built, it likely won’t require constant changes and updates.

It’s then that you need to promote your website.

▪  Enlist a terrific writer to write original, compelling content for your blog, which can then be promoted via social media.

▪  Hire a videographer to produce short videos about your products or services.

▪  Have your marketing expert orchestrate all of the above into successful marketing campaigns.

▪  And make sure your SEO consultant is measuring and regularly reporting overall effectiveness.

Technical experts are rarely creative experts. Those who possess such characteristics are rare.

But more often than not, they’re two distinct, separate disciplines that should collaborate, not to do each other’s jobs.

Eric Cawley is president of Complete Marketing Solutions, Meridian. eric@completemarketing.us, 208-440-6754