Ad Budgets Go Digital

TV? Check. Radio? Check. Print? Newspapers. Magazines. Check. Outdoor? Yep. We’ve got a few billboards. How much should we budget for PR? What do we have left? 

Man, choosing your marketing mix was so much easier before the internet wasn’t it? This may not necessarily be true; but the fact is that there are a lot more options for marketers to consider today when planning to get their message out to consumers. Even though the wants of today’s consumers are not so dissimilar to those of generations past – how they see (and interact) with these messages definitely is. The internet changed everything and it’s still changing – and so is how managers are allocating marketing dollars across their media mix.

The shift in budget from traditional mediums of advertising to digital continues to grow. In a recent survey of global CMOs it was found that 23% of those surveyed planned to devote more than half of their budgets to digital marketing – more than double over the previous year.  When you think about it, it’s not that surprising. As marketers we want to get our message out to consumers in a way that leaves an impressionable feeling. A feeling strong enough for them to act upon and ultimately choose our product or service over another’s (or at least consider our message to be truthful). We know that to make an impression with consumers, we must be highly visual. To do this, we need to be where they are.

So where are they? In 2013, they are online – more so than they have been in the past anyway. In fact, a 2013 survey by eMarketer has shown for the first time in history, daily time consumers spend with digital media has surpassed that of TV. Say it ain’t so? Yep. Do I suspect this trend to continue in Canada as well? Yeah, I do. Why? Unlike many of the traditional forms of media, digital marketing is still evolving. My colleagues talk a lot about how in some of our previous blog posts.

If that’s not enough to convince you of the budgeting shift, here are a few advantages of digital marketing that I feel are reason enough to shift your budgets too:

• It’s measurable – Metrics like reach and frequency are valuable data for traditional advertising mediums, but they don’t reflect the true number of consumers that actually saw (or even better – interacted with) your ad. With digital advertising, this information (and more) is readily available.
• It’s intelligent – Digital advertising allows you to drill down and find out who your consumers really are and, further, what types of ads are actually converting your audience.
• It’s adaptable – This works on so many levels. Say something happens in the marketplace that makes your message irrelevant, you can change it to make it relevant in real time. With digital advertising you have the ability to test different types of ads and quickly make changes on the fly to focus efforts and provide results. I challenge you to do this as easily (or as economically) with TV.

All that said, with the growth of digital marketing, is traditional a thing of the past? Not necessarily. Is it dead? Certainly not. Will it disappear any time soon? A definite no. The truth is, there isn’t a specific group of numbers used to divide up an organization’s marketing mix pie. The size of the slices will likely be different for each pie; however, we see more and more organizations cutting a larger digital slice. Yum!

Please feel free to comment below to discuss your experience with digital ad budgets, or even pie and, if you want to make the best use of your digital dollars or bring your digital strategy to the next level, connect with us at info@vovia.com. Mmmmmmmmmm Pie…