Should you stop all traditional media spend?

Transcript

– Personally, it’s down to the individual to decide whether you should stop all your traditional media spend. So a question that we get asked is there’s so many new platforms coming through, and so many new ways to spend your advertising pounds, should we just scrap all of our traditional advertising altogether? And my answer to that is no, definitely not. You’ll hear a lot of people talking about the marketing mix and I think that’s something that we can so easily forget that marketing should be a mix of different things constantly and making sure that we’re covering different platforms. So whilst digital is the buzzword at the moment, and everybody wants to be seen to be doing digital marketing and be doing it well, I think there is definitely still a place for traditional, but I think what we mustn’t lose sight of is actually tracking what works and letting the data decide how much budget do you put into print this year? Or should I move everything to Facebook? Or should I pull away from Facebook entirely and do just Google? Traditional media spend and traditional marketing has been under a lot of fire over the last five years. And that’s because many people, like myself have been running out saying, look, do Facebook, do LinkedIn, do this innovative stuff and the reality is, it has led to many people not really talking about traditional marketing and many people not really discussing the benefits of billboards or even email is perceived now as traditional. And what I really want you to do is, I don’t want you to go running off with the latest crazes. I don’t want you to go running off and start doing Facebook advertising, Google advertising, because you heard a guy do a talk about it once. What I want you to actually do is look at your full marketing strategy and marketing plan and delegate respectful budgets to each area, but then here’s the crucial thing… really make sure that you’re analysing exactly what is happening with that spend. You see many people will throw a billboard up and just claim some sort of revenue from putting that billboard up. But I want to know really what has that brought? What is the real tangible return on investment from those areas? Obviously the advantage with digital marketing is that it’s easier to track conversions and easier to track the user journey on your site. Whereas, if you’re just relying on print media and more traditional media services, then it’s difficult to track where these conversions are coming from or how these channels are actually working for you. That’s why I like working with PPC because it’s so easy to see, okay, well, I made this campaign, it’s spent this much money, but it bought me these customers and this business back in return. As a caveat, I would suggest implementing some of the offline tracking methods that previously have alluded advertisers and previously haven’t been possible. So using things like trackable phone numbers on billboards, on leaflets, on brochures allows you to see the number of phone calls coming through from those particular forms of advertising. I’ve always said that allow your digital marketing decisions to be data-based, don’t do it based on a hunch that you think that traditional marketing isn’t current anymore, or you think that this new platform is where it is, therefore go all in on that. Don’t let that be the case. Allow these things to be data driven, track the phone numbers that you get from your brochure using the new trackable phone number softwares that are out there. Do the same with your billboards. Do the same with your flyers. Let’s see if they’re driving results. If they are, then let’s keep hold of them. If they’re not, let’s reassess. Always make it data driven. But as a caveat to that, what I will say is we’ve long encouraged brands where possible, to put aside 15% of their marketing budget for essentially experimental, new forms of advertising that they wouldn’t necessarily have gone for before. By putting aside 15% of your marketing budget to these new platforms, these new ways of advertising, what you’re essentially doing is you’re committing to the new wave. You’re committing to the future. You’re committing to staying on top of the trends, whilst not necessarily putting all of your eggs in a basket, which you’re not so sure off. I think it’s important to not pile all your eggs into one basket, but it’s also important to listen to that data, to let it drive your decisions. Definitely keep experimenting with new mediums, but don’t make rash decisions. So don’t pull all of your budget out of print and then find out too late that print was actually what was driving all of your sales. So I think it’s really important to get the basics right, and make sure you’re tracking. So whether you use a slightly different link to your website on your leaflets, just make sure you know, okay, when I put that leaflet out on the 1st of August, what return did it bring? Because when you know the answers to those questions, it makes splitting the budget and deciding where to spend the money really easy. And what you will start finding over time really is that digital is much easier to track. Way easier to track. But there are easier ways of tracking your traditional marketing spend as well. And I don’t want you to run away from the thing that’s always has worked for your brand, just because something shiny and new is taking over. The reality is marketing is there to serve a purpose. Don’t chase innovation just for the sake of doing it, make sure you’re doing innovation with one purpose. And that is to grow the business you’re working for.