Since the dawn of the Internet, marketers have been comparing the effectiveness of traditional versus digital media all the time, it's what they do. Traditional channels really are the older forms of media, like TV, radio, and print, you know the kind. Digital marketing methods that use things like the Internet, mobile phones, and other digital formats. Firstly, let's take a look at digital to help understand the value of digital. We'll look at some benefits to really get a feel for what that is. Now, some of the benefits of digital marketing include things like, consumers actually spend more time online than ever before. In fact, it has surpassed TV as the preferred media choice for many consumer segments. You can't actually reach some segments without advertising online. I don't have a TV, you can't effectively market me unless you do it online. That's a consideration. Another benefit of digital marketing is production costs tend to be a lot lower. Content and communication prices and all of that stuff are much easier to produce the ads and things you need to advertise. Another thing we have to consider and it's really important, and the flexibility of digital is built in here, it's possible to modify the strategy mid-campaign to reflect new insights garnered from the performance. Make those changes to spot new opportunities and move your campaign towards getting the best possible outcome. Another important factor with digital marketing is they're highly trackable from initial interaction all the way to purchase or leads submission or whatever. Defining things like a precise ROI in digital is highly achievable compared to non-digital channels. That's important distinctions and we must keep them in mind when justifying our position. Now, not to say that there's no need for traditional channels, it's actually important forever that they work together because as part of your media mix, we will include traditional channels. Some of the benefits of those traditional channels include things like, it's high-impact. If you run an ad in the Super Bowl, it's a high-impact ad that will walk into a large range of consumers. Another thing it can provide is creativity. Some of the most creative ad formats have been in print or still. Images, or radio ads or TV. It's a highly creative format. We've also got branding because a strong presence in high consumer areas enables companies to get maximum brand impact, like really well placed 48 sheets or billboards gets maximum impact and feel brand. There's often that prestige element of traditional marketing. Doing a big TV ad, a big outdoor converging, something like that comes with a certain amount of prestige that is really noticed by consumers and probably the board of directors. Now, there's also an emotional connectivity with the consumer. You really can't connect your brand with the consumer using traditional marketing. There are numerous examples of times when using both digital and traditional channels together, and a multi-channel media plan really leads to positive and excellent results. Now considerations, the zones weren't looking at considerations. While it's straightforward enough to measure the impact of digital channels on conversions, on sales, or engagement, the challenge is actually to measure the effectiveness of traditional channels on campaign activity. One way of doing this is to use things like baseline changes in performance of your digital channels, pre and post campaign. What does normal look like? If things go up, you can attribute this to the influence of the traditional channels on people to go online and act or engage, taking action in those inbound channels. Another key driver of this is, [inaudible] brand search increase because traditional media can drive awareness of your brand and know people are actually looking for you. This is a great indicator of traditional media performance and will translate into positive bottom line benefits for your company or your business. It's essential that we use traditional and digital channels together in a consistent way. Aligning the online look and feel of a campaign messaging, its colors, all of that stuff, drives higher-performance. Alignment across your channels increases audience recall. Your campaign becomes more recognizable for people who see it across all the different channels, whether it's online or offline, they will recognize a through the consistency. Now, thinking about your audience, we always have to go back to the audience. Let's compare traditional and media formats, and how they're consumed by the audience, costly it's a little bit different and it's important look at the differences. Firstly, we have mass versus individual. When people are watching TV or listen to the radio, it can be more of a group experience. The medium is consumed in a group situation. When you're watching TV with the family or listen to the radio on the car and different things like that, you're all receiving the same message. You're all hearing the same things, exposure to the same stimuli. It's a group experience where all the eyes and ears are receiving that single focused message. It has to be adaptable to everyone. However, if we look at social media, email, and apps, for example, the medium is the same and they use the same by different people, but the content can be customized for the individual. Most people use the same social channels, the same email platforms, and common apps just to engage a content or whatever exactly it is they're doing. But thanks to things like technology, we're able to understand who that person is and we can adapt our messaging to what consumers actually want to see and deliver them a personalized variation of the content based on their preferences. It's far more impactful for them, and that is an individual experience. That's the difference in mass and individual. Now if we look at passive versus active, it's something we will have heard about a lot in our lives. Passive audiences consume things like TV and radio, sometimes without any direct engagement with the channel, they're not really interacting with it. Then when the ads come up, they might be paying attention. It's much more of a passive kind of experience. It's more of a one-way communication stream in reality. Therefore, it's less impactful. On the other hand, we have active media. This is the form of media where consumers can engage with it. Active media really tends to be digital, like Facebook or Google, and different channels like that, because content on digital platforms have been developed to be highly engaging. Consumers can share, comment, like, tweet, penn, do whatever it is. But they're doing something with that content. It's a two-way form of communication where the consumer can react and essentially they can talk back. That's the difference between passive and active audiences. Now another characteristic is the concept of one to one versus one to many communications. As digital marketers, we can create multiple variations of the same message. This means we can tailor our message to different people and engage them more effectively. By doing this, brands also aim to individualize, to personalize, and become more relevant to the consumer because it's about them. That's what technology can deliver for us. Finally, we've got the concept of inbound, outbound, a key difference here between traditional and online media. Outbound being, I'm the brand and I push my message out on TV, radio or print or whatever. Inbound being, I'm a digital brand and people are coming to seek out my content on social media, subscribe to my email because they want to hear from me, or search for me online. In essence, they are coming to us. The inbound, outbound play is a great difference here between our traditional and digital channels as we can see the differences unfold.
