We all know it now: Digital marketing kicks butt.
Organizations big and small should be investing in paid search, SEO and email marketing. In some categories the ROI makes putting most (if not all) of your marketing budget into digital marketing a no-brainer.
Or is it?
Care to guess how many people have never sent an email in the U.S.?
Nope. That’s way too low.
According to a recent study by Park Associates, 20% of the U.S. population has never sent an email.
“No brainer” ideas often end up making people wonder if we indeed have no brains.
Consider your target: Where they go for their information. How they make their buying decisions. What turns them on.
Consider the promotional cost effectiveness of each marketing discipline relative to the stages of buyer readiness. To be responsible, your marketing must be media and discipline neutral.
And whatever you do, don’t put all your marketing eggs in a digital basket.
Have you ever been told about a “no brainer” marketing idea? How did it turn out?
Comment below to share your thoughts.
Diversification in marketing is key to making the target audience aware. As a web developer, SEO, and marketing manager for my company, I receive tons of offers like this: “Only $75 per year for search engine listings…” What a waste of money–and I bet a lot of companies pay for this “service” without realizing any sort of ROI. Email, pay per click, and other forms of digital marketing must be given the same forethought as any other marketing campaign. Frankly, I don’t want everyone clicking on my website–pay per click isn’t for us. However, a strategically placed banner on the right website could pay for itself thousands of times over if it lead to merely one new customer.
Direct mail advertising is another “no brainer” marketing idea that will see little to no ROI if not properly undertaken. My wife and I refer to those stuffed envelopes of offer-less pleas to purchase as “Tuesday Trash.” Frankly, I’d rather spend time learning my customer and designing a targeted ad that, should he or she decide to call, will all but ensure a conversion.
One of my ads received a 10% conversion with an insane amount of word-of-mouth after providing the service. Thus, I only used that particular campaign twice in five years. Frankly, I couldn’t handle the volume of work without having to hire some help–not my goal. Point is, knowing your customer can’t be stressed enough. For that campaign my customer was female, white, 30-45, single, 1-2 children, employed, computer illiterate, and dependent on computers for work and home–none of my customers came from yellow pages or my freelance website.