The possibilities of what a marketer can do within digital marketing are astounding. Never before has it been easier to connect with customers, engage them in your brand, let them experience it with other fans and build relationships for the future. Unfortunately, people still apply the old laws of marketing and advertising to this new, limitless frontier.
If you work for a digital agency, you have doubtlessly seen this scenario play out:
Client: So, we want to really integrate our offline marketing communications with our digital strategy
You: That's great we can...
Client:Here is a Quark document our designer put together from our newspaper ad/billboard/brochure/etc.
You: Hmm. We were actually thinking about...
Client: Can you make the logo spin too?
You: *sigh* Sure.
I only half kid here. I've been handed many a Quark/Photoshop document in my day designed by print designers who have no idea what digital strategy is nor what it takes to execute online. While this trend is dissipating, with digital's rise in actual and perceived value, the habit is a hard one for some people to break.
The updated version of this scenario usually plays out in throwing somebody's :30 spot into YouTube or adding it to a rich media ad. While that is a quick way out, it's not using the full power of digital. As we move into a broader band world of digital where interactive is creating and driving the (internal and customer) conversations, it becomes easy to look for the easy path to integration, but that pitfall should be avoided.
Here are some questions to get the conversation started:
- When the options are endless, why do people return to familiar formats?
- Is your digital strategy created separately from your offline strategy? Do your agencies talk?
- Digital is the best two-way communication tool, why do we still talk AT our customers?
- It's also the easiest medium to turn off. Knowing that, how do you keep people engaged?
- Are you letting your fans bring you into their lives as much as they'd like?
- Do you allow your fans to take you along to where THEY live online?
- What campaigns have you seen that REALLY integrate offline and online to reach people?
What do you think?
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interactive marketing, marketing, Matt Dickman, relevance, social media, Techno//Marketer, trends
