Great Article by:Filed Under Buying the Web
Now, I know that a lot (and I mean a lot) of people think that marketing and advertising on the web is the most defined as far as knowing the target audience and effectiveness of the campaigns. You’ll hear a lot of statements being made about the metrics of online marketing that allow you to get so much more than you could before from traditional marketing methods (like TV, print and radio). But is that really true?
In my opinion, online can give you more clarity on the audience you’re buying from the online vendor. But the fact is that an efficient and effective advertising campaign will have ALL aspects of media included. Why? Because the demographic that you are looking at pitching is actually very fractured. Online only advertising will only get you a small defined segment of the population. In fact, each online advertising opportunity will give you a defined segment that are most likely not the same from one another. What I’m trying to say in way too many words is that online marketing campaigns for the general population of the state of Hawaii would involve multiple online environments. And even if you caught them all, not everyone is even online (it’s a fact, seriously!).
But ignoring online advertising would also be leaving out a large part of the population that is growing every day. The true value of online and social media initiatives is that they are marketing campaigns for themselves. This is no different than the big campaigns of the past like “Where’s the Beef”… Just a different media platform from which to launch. And this media platform can spread like wildfire.
To have a truly effective campaign, an advertiser needs to look at all of the platforms and create a consistent message across all of them for the period of the campaign. Each reinforcing the other. Now this is not new at all! The media buyers out there in the world know that you need to have exposure in all platforms to touch the segment of your desired demographic. But the real magic comes into how you spread your resources amongst the platforms to get the most bang for the buck. That means you need to really think about your campaign a little more than to just shotgun your ads.
One example that comes out a lot when talking about online marketing is Obama’s campaign. But really, how much of it was people going online and seeing the messages from Obama as compared to the traditional media constantly covering the online campaign and spreading the online message over the traditional platforms? What Obama’s online initiatives really did was create a circle of supporters that became a choir for the campaign. The actual population that went to the site and read the material and played the videos was small compared to the population that were aware of the material. That’s where the traditional media part came into play. Genius.
But also note that Obama’s campaign did not skimp on spending for their online initiatives. They spent quite a bit of resources to get that going strong… But I’m sure it was much less than what they spent on traditional media. I think it’s a common misconception that online advertising is cheap. Compared to traditional media, it can but cost effective. But to have it done right will cost you some resources.
So am I saying not to have an online campaign? Of course not! The online campaign is what drove the traditional media campaign and it strengthened the “personal” connection that people felt with Obama. But temper your expectations of what an online only campaign will get you and think of your marketing approach from 10,000 feet up. Because the one thing that will destroy your campaign is not sticking to your message.
Article Found At:
http://kgmb9.com/tech/?p=243
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