Dispense with digital marketing, the worst mistake of a company

To dispense with digital marketing is the worst mistake a company can make today, because customers search, compare and decide online before they ever call. A business without a website it controls, a customer database, a deliberate presence where its buyers look and automated digital experiences is, for practical purposes, invisible in its market.

Not long ago I had the chance to meet the owner of a hotel in the north of the country. The property had received no visitors in the previous two years. It was beautiful, set in an area privileged by nature and peace, with more than twenty rooms and all the infrastructure a successful hotel needs. What it did not have was a single guest. I must admit the experience produced mixed feelings. On one hand I loved the hotel and its grounds. On the other I felt real pain at seeing a property so well developed in such a sad situation.

The hotel was not only off the main road. It had no presence on any known digital platform. It was almost forty years old, and in its early decades the marketing had been done through flyers, radio and personal contacts. Sadly, when one of the owners died, the hotel began to die slowly with the network that person had kept alive. When we looked for the hotel online, there was no website, no wider presence on the internet, and only a few reviews on a tourism portal. The Facebook page could not be called a tool at all, because its photographs and lack of publications would repel anyone considering a visit. Worse, there was no telephone number to call.

The story is told to illustrate, in the harshest but truest way, that no business today can expect to survive without a sound digital strategy. It is also a story about decisions made by default. Nobody at the hotel ever chose to be invisible. They simply never replaced the marketing that had worked four decades ago with anything that works now, and the market moved on while the rooms stayed empty. The same drift happens quietly in companies that still look healthy on the income statement, which is why executives in every industry should read the hotel as a warning and not as an anecdote.

Why is dispensing with digital marketing such a costly mistake?

Many people believe a digital strategy means having social networks full of likes and photographs with plenty of interactions. Nothing could be further from reality. Dispensing with digital marketing is a decision that can hinder a company's growth and limit its reach in an increasingly connected world. In the digital age consumers search for information, compare options and decide online, and lacking an effective digital marketing strategy is equivalent to being invisible in the market. A buyer who cannot find you does not reject you. The buyer never learns that you exist, so you never see the lost sale on any report.

The cost is hard to see because it is an absence. Consider a family-owned industrial supplier whose best salesperson retires. For twenty years the relationships carried the business, and nobody built a website that explains what the company makes, a customer database that records who buys what, or a content presence that would let new buyers find it. Within two years revenue declines, and management attributes the fall to the market. The market did not change. The company had been renting its visibility from one person and lost the lease. A clinic, a law firm, a distributor of building materials and a boutique hotel can all follow the same path, and the only difference is how quickly it shows in the results.

Research on how travelers behave online makes the principle concrete for hospitality, the industry of our opening story. A Cornell University study of the so-called billboard effect, analyzed by PhocusWire, examined 1,720 reservations across six InterContinental Hotels Group brands and found that nearly 62 percent of guests who booked on a hotel's own website had first visited Expedia, which suggests how much of the buying journey begins on third-party platforms before it reaches the hotel (PhocusWire, Are online travel agency hotel commissions reasonable). The data dates from 2011 and covers one hotel group, so it should be read as an illustration and not as a current benchmark. It still makes the essential point. Customers do their research online and the businesses they find are the ones they consider. A hotel with no presence is not part of the comparison at all.

What are the pillars of a company's digital strategy?

The digital strategy of a company rests on several pillars that need to be considered together, and I would order them as follows. The first is the website. Make your sales on your own website, so that you reduce intermediation costs, control the whole path to purchase and earn repeat purchases. The website is the one digital asset a company truly owns. Social networks and marketplaces are rented space, subject to rules and algorithms that can change without notice.

The second pillar is a CRM. Implementing this kind of tool allows you to hold valuable information about your customers and to generate new sales from that information. A hotel that records who stayed, when, for what purpose and with what preferences can invite them back for an anniversary or send a tailored offer in the low season, whereas a hotel with no records starts from zero each year. The third pillar is digital marketing in the strict sense. It is necessary to use the right channels and publish the right content. Paid placements on social networks do generate traffic to the website and sales, but defining well where to appear matters as much as how much to spend, because a message in the wrong place is wasted regardless of its quality.

The fourth pillar is digital experiences. Automate everything you reasonably can inside the business, from orders and payments to the customer experience itself. A restaurant that lets guests reserve, pre-order and pay from a phone removes friction for the customer and effort for the staff. In this digital age it is necessary to focus effort so that results are maximized and costs minimized, and the four pillars together do that by making each one reinforce the others. The website brings visitors, the CRM remembers them, the marketing brings them back and the digital experience makes it easy to buy.

What would have changed for the hotel?

If this hotel had at least a good website, it could receive reservations directly and avoid some of the commissions charged by third parties, or at the very least it would receive visits. The Cornell research adds a useful nuance here. PhocusWire reports a 30 percent commission as the benchmark that hotels paid to an online travel agency at the time, and it also describes the researcher's finding that a listing on such a platform sends additional bookings to the hotel's own website, which lowers the effective cost of those commissions. The conclusion is not that platforms are bad or good. It is that a hotel needs both its own channel and a considered presence on the others, and that its own channel is the only one it controls.

The first steps for that property would have been modest and inexpensive. Claim a free Google Business Profile, which lets a business manage how it appears on Google Maps and Search and show its phone number, opening hours, website and location, post photographs and respond to reviews (Google Business Profile Help). Publish a simple website with real photographs, rates, a booking or inquiry form and a telephone number that someone answers. Gather the names of past guests and write to them. None of these steps require a large budget. They require that someone own the task. ICX has written about how digital transformation helps a hotel in its articles on how to carry out the digital transformation in a hotel and on why a hotel needs a CRM.

It is worth being candid about the limits of this advice. A website and a business profile do not guarantee a full house, and a remote property with weak infrastructure or uncompetitive pricing will still struggle. What they do is turn an unknown quantity into a measurable one. Once the hotel has a channel it owns, the owner can see how many people visit, how many inquire and how many book, and can test changes to price, photographs and offers with real evidence. Before that, every decision is a guess made in the dark. The value of a digital foundation is less the traffic it creates on the first day than the learning it makes possible on every day after.

How is digital marketing different from simply being on social media?

The confusion between the two is the reason so many small and mid-sized companies feel they have already tried digital and found it disappointing. Posting photographs is an activity. Digital marketing is a system with a goal, a defined audience, channels chosen for that audience, content that answers the questions buyers actually ask, and a way of measuring what each effort returns. A private clinic that publishes cheerful images every day but does not answer the questions patients search for, such as prices, waiting times, insurance coverage and how to book, will gather likes and very few appointments. The same clinic with a clear page for each service, accurate listings and an easy booking route will turn the same attention into patients.

Business-to-business companies face the same distinction in a different form. A buyer at a manufacturing company evaluating a new supplier will usually read about the supplier, compare it with others and form a view before speaking to anyone. If the supplier's website cannot explain what it does, for whom and with what evidence, the sales team enters the conversation already behind. Content that shows the company's thinking, such as articles, case descriptions and clear service pages, is not decoration. It is the first sales meeting, held without the salesperson. The customer database then lets the company follow up with relevant material instead of a generic message, and measurement shows which pieces of content actually lead to inquiries, so that effort moves toward what works.

What does this mean for the C-level?

For the chief executive, digital presence is not a marketing project. It is the condition under which the rest of the commercial model operates, and the question to ask in the next management meeting is simple: if a new customer searched for us today, what would they find, and what could they do next? The answer often exposes how much of the company's revenue depends on a few personal relationships, which is a risk the board should know about.

For the chief commercial and marketing officers, the opportunity is to attract and convert on channels the company controls, using the customer database to retain and build loyalty. A company that knows its customers can calculate what a returning customer is worth against the cost of finding a new one, and can decide where to spend. For the chief financial officer, digital channels bring visibility of acquisition cost and conversion that traditional marketing never offered, which makes budgets easier to defend and to adjust. For operations and service leaders, automating orders, payments and routine requests lowers the cost to serve and frees staff to deal with the situations where a person makes the difference.

One caution applies to every executive. Your business should not be based only on your own capabilities. It must answer a real need of your customers or potential buyers. Digital marketing can make a product visible, but it cannot make an unwanted product valuable. The hotel in our story had superb facilities. The test is whether travelers in the area want what it offers at the price it charges, and a few conversations with past guests would have told the owner more than any consultant.

How do you start on Monday morning?

Begin with a short audit that the leadership team can do in an afternoon. Search for the company by name and by the problem it solves, as a customer would, and record what appears. Open the website on a phone and try to complete the action you want a customer to take. Check that the telephone number, address and opening hours are correct everywhere they appear. Look at the customer records and ask how many customers could be contacted tomorrow with a relevant message. These simple checks usually reveal the gaps that matter most.

Then choose a single pillar to strengthen first. For most companies it is the website and the customer database, because everything else depends on them. Assign an owner, set a modest target for the next quarter, such as the share of inquiries that arrive through the company's own channels, and review it monthly. Add the other pillars in sequence. A business that moves steadily in this way becomes visible faster than one that waits for a perfect strategy, and it learns from real customers along the way. For the structured next step on conversion, see the ICX article on eight ways to increase your website conversion rate.

How ICX helps

ICX Consulting helps companies decide where digital marketing fits in their commercial strategy and then build it in a sensible order. Our digital marketing consulting defines the channels and content, our CRM consulting organizes the customer information that makes the marketing precise, and our digital experience design connects the pieces into a journey customers want to complete. Technology such as HubSpot is used where it helps, as the tool that carries the design. To map how customers actually move from discovery to purchase, use the ICX Customer Journey Toolkit.

Frequently asked questions

Is a social media page enough to have a digital presence?

No. A social page is useful for visibility and conversation, but the company does not own the audience or the rules. A website you control, accurate listings on search and maps, and a customer database are the foundation. Social media works best when it points back to them.

Should a business avoid online travel and marketplace platforms to protect its margin?

Not necessarily. Marketplaces can bring buyers who would otherwise never find you, and some of them then buy directly. The sensible approach is to build a strong direct channel, use platforms deliberately, and track what each channel actually costs per customer.

How much should a small business invest in digital marketing?

Start with the low-cost foundations, which are a clear website, a complete business profile on search engines and a simple customer list. Add paid campaigns only when you can measure what they return. The right budget is the one you can connect to inquiries and sales.

Can a traditional business with long-standing customers ignore digital?

It can for a time, but it takes on the risk of depending on a few relationships and a shrinking pool of customers who find businesses the old way. Digital presence protects continuity when people retire, move or change suppliers.

Visibility is a decision, and the businesses that make it deliberately tend to outlast those that leave it to chance. If you suspect that your company is less visible than it should be, request a diagnostic with an ICX consultant and we will show you where customers are looking and what they find when they look for you.