THE DIGITAL DILEMMA

In today’s volatile, uncertain and challenging business world, we need our sales and marketing investments to work hard for us. But how do we know what we should be doing to get the right results? “It’s all just digital marketing now, isn’t it?” is a phrase I hear a lot. My answer to that is “No, not if you want to stand out.” e pendulum may seem to have swung right over to 100% digital marketing, but I suggest the way to make yourself stand out, in order to get the all-important cut through and engagement to ultimately win favour with your target audience, is to take a strategic integrated marketing approach – and use digital only as part of the mix.

Physical communications have the ability to make a direct connection with our audience on a human and emotional level. Digital can give you reach and measurement. When the right direct and digital strategies are combined in the correct way, starting with, at its core, deep customer insight and built on a strong go-to-market strategy foundation, you’ll be set up for success.

Did you know that “90% of human decisions are made based on emotions?”* Humans may use logic to justify their actions to themselves and others, but feelings have a huge importance in driving decision making and behaviour.

Whilst digital marketing can be a relatively a ordable option to allow you to access audiences far and wide, don’t underestimate the value of touch and physical interaction –between the customer and the business. Depending on your business, the options for ‘touch’ and ‘physicality’ will vary; what’s important is that you don’t overlook the opportunity to build these options into your brand to develop meaningful emotional connections between you and your audience.

In considering what you should be doing, we need to remember also that our customers:

• Are su ering from information overload and have a short attention span.

• Are craving human interaction and like to buy from people and businesses who are ‘real’ and ‘tangible’.

• Have preferences for what, when, where, how and why they consume content.

Did

Arthur Lefford

All these facts indicate a need to take a step back, re ect and set the marketing strategy right – one where taking an integrated marketing approach can inform the right messaging development, content creation and individual direct and digital “connected” strategies and tactics.

Let’s talk about direct mail; for most of us a thing of the past, replaced by email. But today, who has time to sift through their unsolicited email inbox? And it’s potentially costly if you’re not getting results or, worse still, you’re making people unsubscribe from your database if they feel spammed.

But won’t integrated cost more because it involves more e ort? Not necessarily. In fact the business case for integrated marketing campaigns is extremely convincing. Who would not want a higher return on investment and improved customer experience and satisfaction?

For instance, adding direct mail or door drops to your marketing mix can increase your ROI by as much as 12%.**

In a B2B environment it can take ve to seven touches before your brand is remembered, let alone someone taking a positive step to interact with you. You can’t have all of those being email.

When text and video are presented on the same page, 72% of people prefer to learn about a product or service from a video.†

We all know that video is a top performing creative medium, but do we all know the multitude of assets where it can be shared from?

Three Tips

1Take a piece of content and reuse it in a different creative, innovative, ingenious way; repurpose it for different channels print and online; and recycle it for different audiences.

2 Add direct mail to your digital efforts for an uplift in awareness and engagement; follow up a digital download with print.

3 Use video to bring your team, products or services to life and deliver it in original ways, not just via email links.