Delivering Your Message in a Digital World

Message placement and delivery options within have grown tremendously over the last several years with the increase in online advertising. And according to an All Thing Digital article from 2013, Google’s Senior Vice President and chief business officer Nikesh Arora, predicts that “over 50 percent of advertising goes online in the next five years.”  CNET stated that within the first six months of 2012 Google generated $20.8 billion in ad revenue, compared to the entire U.S. print media which generated $19.2 billion. Additionally, according to Ad Age, U.S. digital advertising revenue grew by 19 percent to $27.5 billion in the first six months of this year. The way advertisers, marketers and we as strategic communicators deliver and place our messages requires us to think more strategically in how we execute the task.

Traditional advertising includes print, radio, and television. While what is called nontraditional, although it is becoming more and more “traditional” as it becomes standard practice, emerging media such as display ads, search engine marketing, location-based advertising and more are being utilized. Advertisers are becoming more pull oriented than push.

    

“The exercise of “push” media addresses audiences comparatively imperiously, while “pull” media strategically accords liberty and complies with the interactive choice that ensues” (Serazio, 2010).  The shift that is occurring in today’s marketing and advertising world is the change from push media, which represents a TV ad where the message and product is almost forced upon an individual, to pull media where companies are taking great measures to engage in pull advertising.

The idea is harnessing word-of-mouth-marketing and consumer generated content to a company’s advantage. If a message is shared peer-to-peer, rather than the company itself, there is a greater chance for action from the individual. An example of this includes seeing a newspaper ad for a new restaurant. You might see that ad 10 times over two weeks and it never really triggered any response from you. Now let’s say a co-worker starts talking about that same restaurant and share a positive experience they had at the restaurant.  Now, there’s a greater chance you will try out that business because you trust your co-worker more than a paid advertisement.

Now what if I told you that co-worker was paid by that restaurant to do what its print ads could not. Provide a positive story about the business and generate interest and ultimately business through word-of-mouth-marketing. In the technologically driven society we live in, more and more companies are experimenting with orchestrating organic business or product mentions. “Thus, once more, “discovery” comes to the forefront as a conceptual model for marketing management, supposedly legitimating a scenario whereby the consumer draws out information without feeling like has been forced upon her – a regime of engagement reliant upon creating an environment for a “pull” mechanism while still “pushing” in an underhanded, even passive-aggressive way” (Serazio, 2010, pg. 236).  Meaning, it is the natural progression of an everyday conversation that leads to the promotion of the restaurant, not because you want to hear an ad, but about real life.  Traditional (TV, print, radio) ads automatically make individuals defensive because a message being placed in front of them that may not have any relevance to their interest. The pull mechanism in this instance is the unsolicited advice from a co-worker. Moreover, a Forrester Research study found that 70 percent of consumer are strongly affected by customer review and ratings when making a decision to purchase a product of service.

In my experience I’ve heard and seen marketing agencies integrate consumer-generated content into their campaigns for the reasons listed above, higher message saturation.  When an ad campaign invites you to share your experiences or take a picture with your favorite soft drink next to landmarks in your city or town, companies will then turn to use those images as a way to reinforce their brand.  Companies are very selective about which content they use during a user generated campaign. They want to make sure the image used reflects their brand and its target market.

Trending advertising delivery methods include location-based advertising, contextual and behavior targeting.  Location-based advertising is where an individual receives specific ads depending on their location. An example includes receiving sale information about clothes when you walk past a retail store in a shopping mall. Contextual advertising is where your message will be delivered on a website and through mobile apps that have the same type of content relevant to your audience. For example, I placed an ad for a private religious school that was delivered on religious news websites. The reasoning behind this approach is there is a greater chance a website visitor will interact with the ad if they find the ad relevant to the content they are viewing. Behavioral advertising the process of tracking your activity online and discovering the places you visit and interaction. You may have seen this when you were shopping for clothes, digital camera or computer/tablet. You may have just been researching products, but did not purchase. Now you have an ad for that product following you around for a few days reminding you of that product or service, that is behavioral targeting.

For strategic communicators, we have to find ways to deliver our company’s message effectively. It’s more than just a news release and trying to get media coverage. That is a small part of the equation. Delivering a message could mean paid advertising, as well as earned media. It could mean creating a user generated content campaign to engage with an audience. Modern technology is wonderful, because we can now reach so many people, but we can also be very strategic in reaching specific audiences. It has also made the work of strategic communicators more complex, requiring flexibility.

Tracking your message is often overlooked, but any good communication professional should be evaluating their strategy. Through digital advertising efforts, we can better track an individual through the sales funnel or buying process, thanks to reporting from digital ads. One of the greatest benefits of digital advertising is its ability to, almost in real-time, see the progress of an individual interacting with an ad. The key is reviewing the data and analyzing it to better understand your potential customer. I didn’t want to close this post without mentioning tracking, because it is an important part of evaluating a strategy.