When business owners get stuck in the muck and mire of the digital marketing quagmire, it’s usually for the first time; having not had any direct experience or education in what digital marketing really is, how it works, how to budget, how to tell neighborhood hobbyists from experienced professionals, and not being familiar with important terms such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

This is certainly not their fault, as it’s what you would rightfully expect when someone is completely new to digital marketing.

The Digital Marketer’s Perspective

From the perspective of a seasoned digital marketer, however, we have to contend with false advertising (such as the common “Make a million dollars overnight using online marketing!!” or commercials promoting supposedly free do-it-yourself template builders that end up costing the business owner in untold sums of money by giving them what is essentially a tool they can’t use and isn’t made to deliver tangible results) in the first place.

Digital Marketing’s Purpose

Before we can adequately cover what stops digital marketing dead in its tracks, we should first discuss briefly just what digital marketing is, what it’s not, what it’s meant to do, how it works, and why.

Digital marketing is a process (not an item, even though most people seem to see it as that) that uses digital media such as SEO, eCommerce, automation, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, PPC (Pay Per Click or Paid Advertising), and other tools and methods to promote a business across multiple online avenues while doing everything you can to use the same tools and services to help the business expand into new markets; so we’re promoting a business while we’re trying to reach and nurture potential customers in new markets at the same time.

Digital Marketing Obstacles

This means a website template by itself is pretty much nice but flat. This means SEO without Content Marketing is a dog that can’t hunt or even get off the porch. This means beautiful design and User Experience with no branding or direction is pointless.

Taking this a big step further, this also means that digital marketing without full commitment by the business owner, nonprofit founder, entrepreneur, can’t proceed.

And this leads us into when digital marketing won’t work – no matter how capable the digital marketer is or even how ripe the business owner’s market may be for expansion.

Short Term Vs. Long Term Digital Marketing

Since the competent digital marketer has to educate the client (in most cases) on what digital marketing is and how it works before we can even think about helping the business owner client, without getting “too techie” and losing them along the way, statistically it’s an uphill battle in that only a small percentage of those you could help will actually let you help them.

There’s so much misinformation, so many “get rich quick” schemes vying for their attention and dollars, and much of the information if presented honestly is technical, that most business owners who could benefit most from digital marketing get lost in the weeds.

Most business owners / potential clients either keep trying Do-It-Yourself methods until they eventually hire a personal friend or acquaintance or family member, give up on digital marketing completely and somehow keep operational, or give up and go under completely. Most businesses that embrace and use digital marketing, ironically, are those that are long-established, profitable, have a dedicated team of at least 3-5 employees; while those who could benefit from it the most, never fully embrace its potential .

How do they know who to trust, how do they know what all the technical terms mean, who is competent and can help, as opposed to those selling hot air, and then there is the largest obstacle toward growth out there: denial.

All of these factors, especially when combined with a client who is stuck, creates a “perfect storm” where digital marketing won’t work for them. Until, that is, they can get themselves “unstuck.”

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ Five Stages of Denial and Digital Marketing

After having worked in marketing agencies as a Web Developer, WordPress Developer, SEO Consultant, Copywriter, and then finally as a Project Manager for twenty odd years, and being able to take a step back and re-examine the bulk of my experiences with business owners whether through the agencies or on my own (in-between those positions) as a Consultant, I noticed a striking similarity between the behavior I’d see from potential clients and the five stages of denial that Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross documented in her now-famous book On Death and Dying.

Now of course, there’s a big disclaimer in drawing this observation and discussing the striking similarities in behavior. And that is that the brilliant Swiss psychiatrist Kubler-Ross was writing specifically about the behavior of those who had lost a loved one.

It should go without saying here that of course losing someone you love is nowhere near losing one’s business; but for many, in fact most, the stages are identical.

So they’re the same stages in my humble view, but probably felt to a lesser extent.

A Failing Business Often Equals Being Stuck in One of the Stages of Denial

Anyone who has ever started their own business knows how much work there is involved in starting, building, maintaining and then growing and expanding (and then possibly exiting) that business successfully.

There are more moving parts, more depth, more hills and mountains to climb than most are prepared for.

In many cases there are homes at stake, the ability to support a family, personal pride, one’s integrity, sometimes a person’s life savings, and almost always debt to be paid down that can often outpace profits generated.

As a result of these factors, most business owners when they encounter digital marketing experience the same stages of denial that those grieving the loss of a loved on go through.

If a business owner is stuck somewhere in the midst of these stages, it doesn’t matter how laser-focused and on-target their SEO is, how appealing their Content Marketing efforts are, or how snappy their content is that’s being circulated, or how visually stunning their branding may be, because the source, the person you’re trying to help, isn’t in the game.

They can doom work before it’s even begun by not being fully informed, not being fully committed, by being disinterested, questioning industry norms, micromanaging, and just generally being a client you can’t help.

Eight Types of Digital Marketing Clients You Do Not Want to Be Like and Why

Denial

This is the first stage where the business owner manifests behavior that at face value helps them endure hardships and “power through.”

When we’re dealing with the loss of a loved on, denial can help us compartmentalize and find ways to keep going despite the hit we’ve taken. It can enable us to gradually manage loss in increments or completely shield us from it until we’re ready and able to cope more effectively.

In using digital marketing, denial takes different approaches. It can be seeking out free or super-cheap DIY solutions over working with a experienced professional, it can be not acknowledging deficits such as employees who can’t or won’t deliver, it can mean choosing to put family members in important roles despite inexperience, and it can mean refusal to become familiar with technical concepts such as Search Engine Optimization (how search engines rank your website and its pages).

Denial can mean thinking and believing everything is great, even when your phone is silent day after day and your email inbox is empty week after week. It can be becoming emotionally attached to the DIY template you customized or spent weeks studying how to use even when it’s not representing you well online or bringing any traffic to your site or helping you increase revenue.

It can insulate you from constructive feedback, seeking out help from those most capable of helping you, or keep you convinced that it’s better to “stay the course” then venture out into unknown territory you may not be emotionally read for yet.

Anger

In Dr. Kubler-Ross’ research Anger is manifested by failing to accept what’s happening and feeling life’s not fair.

Now, in the realm of being receptive to digital marketing in order to grow a business, this anger is, again, almost identical but perhaps not as severely felt (it would depend on the person and their situation) as the person who’s lost a family member.

In digital marketing anger can be manifested by the person feeling their inability to grain traction is not fair, that they’ve been dealt a bad hand by life, that nobody really knows what in the world they’re talking about when it comes to digital marketing (like the lawyer I met at a networking group who had tried employing some bargain hobbyist developers and read a few random articles about SEO only to get nowhere fast when trying to reach new clients for his practice – and ended up with an amateur website with no value and no new clients coming in for a little over five years according to him).

The business owner can be frustrated by a lack of progress, not know what to do, not be fully committed to a chosen course of action, usually not have a marketing plan in place that considers digital,they can blame external factors (such as hosting or some widget or tool they insist on using), rather than pull back and reassess.

Depression

This step is represented by the unwillingness to change. They may cling to false beliefs, fight for emotional attachments even when they are not constructive, or the business owner may feel that any changes are futile.

Examples of this would be the business owner who feels ambivalent about digital marketing as a whole, doesn’t understand it and is disengaged from taking organized action so chooses to do nothing at all, it could also be the business owner insisting on being controlling even if they don’t know what they’re doing and are not experts in it at all.

I remember talking to multiple business owners and entrepreneurs over the decades who would say they wanted more customers and to generate more revenue through online visibility but when asked if they would be open to receiving professional help, would say they needed to be in total control, couldn’t see any reason to try, would keep trying things their own way, would ask a family member to try suggestions on their own, and so on down the line toward our next and penultimate phase.

Bargaining

Bargaining or negotiating is when the business owner insists on the specific price of a given process without knowing what a realistic budget should be or sees the process as a single item that is “one and done” and “should be easy,” or “should only take” a set amount of time they dictate. In this stage of denial, solutions should be immediate quick fixes and industry norms are either completely unknown, misunderstood, or irrelevant.

The business owner, even if they are not experts in marketing or digital marketing (SEO, eCommerce, design, website security, content marketing) try to self-diagnose what’s been holding them back from growth, and then are convinced they can do everything that needs to be done a professional level themselves or for the minimal investment of a meal out with friends.

What larger more profitable competitors are doing and why is not considered or blocked out by tunnel vision that’s resulted from the damage done by the previous stages.

Acceptance

This final stage of denial is the antithesis or flip side of denial because it’s where the business owner has finally come full circle to where they can acknowledge that their business is not profitable, probably operating at a loss and accumulating debt, and that maybe, just maybe, the time for taking deliberate action as prescribed by an informed expert, could be the game changer they need.

Hopefully this pivot doesn’t come too late to make a difference, but in most cases, statistically, it does come too late since the average life span of the typical small business is between 2-4 years depending on which source you review.

The reason so many businesses struggle to gain traction and go under so quickly is due to a myriad of factors that vary from person to person and from market demographics to market demographics, but more often than not it’s business owners getting stuck somewhere between these first four stages unable to progress to acceptance.

This final is the proverbial green light where the business owner is ready to find solutions, work within realistic structures, make plans, organize workload, automate processes, take SEO and Content Marketing seriously to the extent that they can given their workload and willingness to learn technical concepts, and invest ten percent of their gross annual revenue as recommend by the U.S. Small Business Administration at the very least if their goal is to expand and grow. It’s where the conscientious Digital Marketer wants all business owners to be.

The Five Stages of Grief that Dr. Kubler-Ross documented so accurately define what most people suffer when confronted by the loss of a loved one.

They also mirror the same stages of denial that struggling business owners face when confronted with digital marketing – something that for many is both new, challenging to wrap their heads around, intimidating, and forcing them to move forward into a new, uncharted territory.

Digital Marketing and Dealing with the Five Stages of Grieving

Even though these Five Stages of Grief that Dr. Kubler-Ross documented can be intimidating, they can be overcome and resolved.

When we’re talking about the loss of a loved one, dealing with that loss and confronting often compartmentalized feelings and distant memories associated with the person can be extremely painful.

When we’re talking about the potential loss of a business those feelings and the act of bringing them to the forefront of thought = action, can be just as difficult to come to grips with.

Nobody plans to lose a business, go broke, lose a house or car, become homeless, give up on a dream, acknowledge failure; but knowing and acknowledging what denial really looks like can better equip us to work through it, especially when offered calm and capable help.

Digital marketing, a process very different from losing a family member, may mirror the steps of denial and eventual coping, is available for business owners profit and growth-minded just as therapy is  there for individuals working through the loss of a loved one. For most business owners, therapy isn’t needed when they can see themselves in these five stages.

Working Through the 5 Stages of Denial & Growing a Business

Do any of these five stages look at all familiar to you?

We’ve all been stuck in the grip of one of these stages at one point in our lives.

The point isn’t to dwell on that memory, but more to acknowledge and decide to move through to Acceptance where we’re in a place to, as the expression goes, “flip the script” and turn past memories and experiences that however painful can help us transform a business…..and our lives.