1. Practice.

2. Play.

3. Repeat.

It’s that simple. You’re thinking…”that’s it?” Yes. In it’s most simple form, digital marketing successes come from doing these three things, just like playing baseball.

Practice

A major league baseball player is not born overnight. These careers often start in neighborhood leagues with tee ball. Only after years of playing school and community sports, are players even at a skill level to be considered for a major league team. Even then, most players start out on farm teams.

The only way they progress and stand out in their sport is by practicing. All of the skills learned from even back with tee ball apply and build upon each other. Tee ball, catch with dad in the back yard, hours of team practices, and more are all foundations that allow a player to be successful in baseball.

The same is true with digital marketing. You have to practice and build the foundations in order to be successful. Has your brand built the foundations to be successful?

Do you have the website in place to direct prospects to? Do you have landing pages set up for your campaigns? Do you have a social media presence and authority built up? Do you have proper branding and marketing materials created?

It comes down to being prepared for handling new clients that walk in your door from a campaign. If you don’t have the foundations in place, you may have a successful campaign, but not one that converts to sales.

You may do more damage than good by promoting a brand that is confusing and flawed. You have to get your foundations in place first!

Play

Successful baseball players may hit many home runs in their career, but they also have hit many “average” hits, foul balls, or even missed good balls. The key is, that they are playing in the first place. You can’t hit a home run when you’re not even holding a bat.

Digital marketing is the same way. Not every email campaign will go viral. Not every social media campaign will make it out of the park, or go viral online. Not every display ad campaign will clear the bases. But, you have to be doing something in order to have a chance at hitting a home run with digital marketing.

And let’s not discount the value that all of these other campaigns have even if they don’t “go viral.” Businesses learn valuable intel on their audience, build rapport with customers, and build their brand with every digital marketing campaign they do.

You can win baseball games without ever hitting a home run, so let’s not discount the value of any good “hit.” Success is made up activities, that when put together as a whole, result in something measurable.

Repeat

Remember that thrill we got when we witnessed a home run? Remember that thrill when your email marketing campaign went gangbusters? We know that excitement too.

We’ve seen it happen. Now, remember what happened next? The game kept going on. You see, one home run hit will not win a game. You need to get multiple successful people back to home plate to get enough points to win.

Digital marketing works a lot like baseball, as we’ve seen. When you have a viral campaign, you have to keep going. Ride that momentum and learn from the success you just had in order to make home runs in your digital marketing more common than before.

Ultimately, a home run or one GREAT marketing campaign will not make or break you. That’s why we focus on multi-channel strategies, retargeting and long-term strategies in digital marketing.

We know that you have to have the foundations in place in order to play at the level you need. Then, you can play to win in digital marketing and know how to hit home runs more often.

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