But Why? Obviously the below points really depend on the actual activity but generally..
Digital, whatever the medium used provides real insights and data.
This data can be used to:
- Measure effectively and accurately back against your objectives (i.e how many people actually saw this ad, what was the actual engagement on this post, how many people really visited a website directly due to the ad)
- Monitor and manage your spend to specific result orientated metrics (i.e cost per action)
- Test a strategy / creative / medium before fully committing a large budget.
Data often real-time or near real-time allows marketeers to edit, amend, pause and optimise a campaign. Depending on how the digital media is actually bought, budget can often be quickly shifted from a poor performing vertical to the best performing, reducing wastage of marketing spend and optimising results.
3. Cost
Digital media is often bought on a performance basis, that is if x happens (i.e a click or an action) then and only then will you be charged x for that action.
In my experience, as Head of Marketing for a Sports Pay TV channel where I am accountable for every $ spent vs the ROI, I have always had to be very considered in marketing spend. I always have to ask myself where can I achieve the greatest and most effective results at the best cost? The answer is always via digital, and the results always support this versus when I have spent on more traditional marketing mediums. This isn't to say that I think any marketing outside of digital is a waste of money as this clearly is not the case, it does however come down to how much you have to spend and how accountable you are for that spend.
I often hear people throwing around the 'all marketing campaigns should have an integrated media strategy' philosophy and yes this may often be the blue sky option, however a lot of brands do not have the luxury of huge marketing budgets to do this. So it comes back to this, if you have a modest budget and are very accountable for spend/results, I would choose Digital Media for my marketing campaign, as you will get far more for you money. Oh and did I mention far greater accountability.
The Opportunity...
So above I have detailed a few (and there are many more) reasons why I believe Digital Marketing is such an important string to your marketing bow. Obviously like everything results and effectiveness are dependent on good strategy, creative, management, data analysis and willingness to be pragmatic. Not all brands are on board with this, infact some are far from it.
So it's not just about 'doing' digital because everyone else is, it's about embracing it, it's about learning about it, and it's about educating work colleagues and yourself about it. I believe there is still a huge opportunity for many brands to excel above their competitors in the digital space purely from being more intelligent with it. You often see this where startups (who tend to focus on digital marketing) gain market share and build awareness with extraordinary pace over very short periods of time, whilst keeping spend to a minimum. Smaller companies can actually compete with the big brands if they are clever, focused and strategic, and base everything they do on real data.
Having worked both agency and client side for a number of years, I believe there are still many marketeers who do not understand Digital and rely too heavily on their media agencies for advice and insights. Unless you have super-duper agency who acts as accountable about results as you do, then you are (a) never going to truly challenge their analysis and therefore arguably not get the most out of them (b) be far to dependent on them. Likewise, there are account managers agency-side that do not have the experience, accountability and practical skills/knowledge that you would expect of them in their position, and there are clients that live and breathe Digital.
Dont Assume! The point is the old saying to "assume is to make an arse out of you and me' - don't assume a Digital Account Manager knows their stuff, don't assume that a client doesn't.
Digital is a vast and ever evolving marketing medium that is being utilised best by people who base their strategies and activity on real data and know their objective metrics inside out. There is such an opportunity in the digital space with evolving technology, free/low cost tools and help tools, and yet still a huge lack of 'real' knowledge in a lot of workplaces both agency and client side; and there lies the opportunity.
Get excited, get motivated, get learning as digital data marketing is where it is at, especially if you are a results orientated person who focuses on metrics.
I am currently writing a post on 10 Digital Marketing Tools that I find useful for planning, implementing and analysing Digital Marketing Campaigns, however in the meantime...
Here are a few useful Digital / Social 101's from others that I have find useful:
It's all semantics man ;)
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