By: Tristan Haley
Let’s face it, digital marketing is here to stay whether we like it or not. Those invasive little pop-ups are the future of advertising and making them work in your favor can be harder than it seems. Every day there’s a new article covering the ills and evils of the digital marketing landscape. Often, these articles gripe about the struggle of generating reach and engagement due to the fact that the majority of online content is user-generated. Companies can be put in quite a predicament if they aren’t creating content that is relevant and timely to their consumer base.
Brands must come to terms with the fact that the majority of users are averse to their advertising efforts to a point where 86% of users skip through ads and 47% use ad-block while browsing the internet (AdAge, 2020). This issue can be remedied somewhat through artificial intelligence and strategic planning, but the best way to make an impact with your digital ads is to do away with the cheesy tone-deaf messaging. Think of Pepsi and its poorly received “Live For Now Moments Advertisement” starring Kendall Jenner. This advertisement was rolled out during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement much to the anger of consumers. This poor ad timing makes it difficult to form a bond with consumers and end up putting them off to your company. Most advertisers fail to keep up with the news and in today’s digital world news travels faster than ever.
Advertisers must be vigilant when it comes to generating content during periods of unrest because it can be seen as insensitive and downright distasteful. This lack of awareness can turn people off to your company and drive away potential customers. Advertisers need to have a plan in place to cover, swap, and cease ads immediately due to the pace of the news cycle and global events.
Audience cultivation is a significant problem when it comes to digital marketing, over half of the money spent is wasted on off-target audiences.“56% of advertisement campaign impressions are lost due to either fraud or off-target audiences”(Innovecs, 2019)”. What this tells us is that advertisers have been taking the convenience of digital marketing for granted and this has made their ability to cultivate audiences poor. In order to make an impact, limit click fraud and gain a following; advertisers must work on segmenting their audience. By segmenting the audience you can market more effectively because you have smaller pools to work with and analyze. This method also offers a higher return on investment because by segmenting audiences, advertisers can save more money by focusing on specific groups rather than shelling out large sums of money for broad-scope digital campaigns.
The ability to interact with consumers directly is a very important and very underutilized benefit of digital marketing. It’s called social media for a reason and what better way to know your consumer base is by actually being social. “Whether the social action is responding to customer reviews, engaging in LinkedIn discussions, replying to comments on Facebook, or re-tweeting customer-generated content, genuinely connecting with shoppers can increase social media success metrics across the board” (10th Degree 2020).
Customer feedback is a very crucial part of having a successful online campaign, the ability to connect with customers and show them that you care about their thoughts and opinions is very important for future campaigns and overall brand image. Digital advertising is getting bigger by the day and advertisers must work to understand how the landscape works for those who fail to keep up with the trends will be relegated to the backlogs of the virtual world
Works Cited
4 common digital marketing problems and their best solutions. (2020, November 20). Retrieved March 05, 2021, from https://www.10thdegree.com/4-common-digital-marketing-problems-best-solutions/
Panel, A. (2020, July 15). 10 major issues digital marketing may face in the future. Retrieved March 05, 2021, from https://adage.com/article/industry-insights/10-major-issues-digital-marketing-may-face-future/2267251
What are 2019’S challenges and digital ADVERTISING TRENDS? (2020, June 22). Retrieved March 05, 2021, from https://innovecs.com/blog/adtech-trends/
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