"A Mighty Maze but Not Without a Plan" - Alexander PopeFor marketers, the "digital revolution" is as important as the advent of television ... but way more complex. That might sound like an exaggeration, but it is absolutely correct.
TV advertising, especially before the advent of cable, was a pretty simple medium. Choose the right target audience for your product, develop a creative message, buy a lot of frequency on the programs that your audience watches and presto, faster than Bounty can pick up a spill or Cheer can get clean the ring around your collar, your product is branded. The audience was huge and frequency was easy to come by (if not exactly cheap).
The Restaurant Analogy Compared to digital marketing, most traditional marketing seems simple. I like to use a restaurant analogy. If you walk into a good steak house you have few choices - a small selection of entrees and a few salad and side dish choices. This is akin to traditional media.
"Would you like a newspaper print ad to go with that TV buy, sir?" 
With the advent of the internet and the dawn of the digital age, marketing has become more complicated. It is more like visiting a Chinese restaurant with four pages of entrées and side dishes.
"Let's see, I'll start with the TV, have some banner ads on the side, an order of pay-per-click and some of those baseball caps with my URL embroidered on them." Now, add social media, mobile marketing, content marketing, ad words, web video, SEO, SEM, app ads, iPhone, iTouch and iPad and iWish I could figure all this out. It is now like entering a restaurant and being approached by five different waiters with five different menus.
Consumers are searching for products and a service in new ways, but finding them can feel like being in the world's most complicated maze. So, what is a marketing professional to do?
In Order to Score You Must Know Where the Goal Is It should be obvious to every business manager today that having both a web presence and a web marketing strategy is no longer optional. It is vital to the future of your business. The question is, where do you put your limited resources?
Certainly, some traditional forms of media are still very effective. We have reported in this newsletter many times on the growth of ad circulars to drive retail business, and the latest Neilson data shows that traditional in-home TV viewing hours increased 1.3% from Q1 2009 to Q1 2010. Clearly, advertising in traditional media is not dead.
There is growing evidence, however, that web channels deliver leads and convert customers for a lower cost than traditional media. In addition, the multi-channel approach to branding yields proportionally higher results. So, what do you do?
Think goal and purpose: what is the goal of my campaign and what purpose will this digital media tactic serve towards reaching that goal? Do you want increased share-of-voice on-line? Do you want to build your brand's awareness? Is lead generation vital? Are conversions your most important consideration? Maybe you have short-term sales goals, etc. After you have established the goal and purpose for the campaign, you need to determine the metrics you will use to judge progress toward that goal.
The next step is deciding the correct media mix to get you there. Can you afford an effective TV campaign? Maybe a Facebook or Twitter account will be beneficial. What about a blog? A pay-per-click AdWords campaign on Google might really pay off. Perhaps trade publication ads will work, or a smart content marketing campaign will drive the traffic you desire. Take a clear look at the benefits each tactic will bring and see if they will also fit into your budget. A word to the wise: avoid the temptation to spread your media dollars so thinly that no element of the mix is really effective and keep your eye on the prize...your goal.
Sooner or Later You Gotta Be Social
While we believe social media should play an important role in most company growth strategies, (driving leads through social media is 60% less expensive than through traditional channels) we have seen many companies start a social media program with no idea of how to leverage it to grow their business. They might jump into Facebook without any idea if it is a viable tool for them, but do it anyway just because they think they need a Facebook page. This is common across industries.
In fact, a just-released survey by Digital Brand Expressions reveals that 59% of companies who use social media have no strategic plan in place to guide such activity. So what's a confused business owner or marketing professional to do? The first step is to seek the help of professionals whose job it is to understand all the options, to craft the right program for you and help you determine the measurement metrics you should be using. The digital world continues to evolve, with new tools becoming available all the time - you have enough on your plate without trying to keep up with a rapidly-evolving industry. At the steak house you might ask for a suggestion, but at the 2010 Media Smorgasbord you really need a guide if you hope to have a truly satisfying meal.
