Before taking a deep dive into the minutiae of tactics and optimization in our next articles, let’s ask the important question. Why should you think about digital advertising?
Traditional media was the bulk of companies’ advertising for generations. Today, your customers aren’t interacting with television, radio and print advertisements in the same way as the past. Instead, he or she streams shows on Netflix or Hulu, listens to music on Spotify or Apple Music, and reads the majority of content on mobile. Customers spend so much more time in the digital space. Digital advertising has become a necessity for businesses to reach their audiences on their level. Whereas traditional ads siphon a substantial amount of budget and time, digital advertising allows marketers to be agile. Digital marketers can precisely target customers where they already are for a greater ROI. For these reasons, your business should consider adding digital advertising to your marketing strategy to maximize your budget, time and exposure to customers.
How can thinking digitally become your mantra?
Marketers know they shouldn’t implement tactics on intuition alone. Rather, they influence their tactical decisions with data, metrics and recorded user behavior. Don’t get me wrong, traditional advertising still has its rightful place, and particular tactics will still resonate more with specific groups. For example, organic content with high-performing SEO is still king and will predominately drive traffic to your website and social.
The fact is, advertising platforms like Google and Facebook allow you to target your audience on a granular level, which can’t be accomplished with organic and traditional efforts alone. We often think we know our audience closely, but do we know our digital audience as closely? Are we reaching everyone searching for our service or product? Did we capture all of our leads? Changing your mindset to think digitally and maintaining a digital strategy will help you understand audiences on a more intimate, analytical level and advertise to their needs accordingly.
How do you create digital goals that get results?
Start with thinking about your digital goals. You have to get down to the nuts and bolts of why you are going digital. Do you want more traffic to your website, a more impactful reach on social media or more sales funnel conversions? What you want to accomplish will dictate the strategy you should implement. Begin with gathering competitor intelligence, assessing industry tactics and gauging what works and doesn’t work. This reconnaissance will equip you with the knowledge to develop more profitable campaigns.
Once you establish your digital goals, then you can narrow down the platforms or tactics that work best for your message. Evaluate if investing in pay-per-click, display or video campaigns, or social media ads will provide the greatest ROI and highest-performing metrics for your goals. Ultimately, setting goals is the perfect motivator for creating result-oriented digital advertising. Not sure what tactics to implement first? Finding an experienced digital advertising partner can help ease the process by providing useful insight and competitor intelligence. In other words, always look for a Google-certified partner who eats, sleeps and breathes digital.
