With so many advertising options, businesses often have difficulty picking and choosing where to invest their marketing dollars. The advertising landscape is an ever-fragmenting world catering to immense audiences and tiny niches. It is up to businesses to figure out what combination will work best to accomplish their goals. The following considerations will help shape your decision on where to invest your marketing dollars best.
Goals and Considerations by Marketing Funnel Stage
Where in the marketing funnel are you? Are you new to the market or introducing a new product? In this case, you need to generate awareness, and you want to reach a large number of people, thus casting a wider net. Traditional media, though expensive, does a great job at this, and so do digital media channels such as display and social media ads (with the right budget). As a general rule of thumb, the lower in the marketing funnel you are, the less-adept traditional media is.
Further down the funnel, you will find interest, where the consumer has some level of awareness about you but is still actively researching and seeking information. Here is where digital campaigns work best. Consider using content marketing to educate the consumer and meet that demand for information. Retargeting campaigns through social media and display ads help drive additional awareness and consideration to those already aware. On the traditional marketing route, consider using print ads and direct mail. Both traditional options have a higher cost barrier, making their effectiveness difficult to measure.
Reaching the consideration stage means that a more serious interest has developed. You are in the running, but there is still work to be done. The goal here should be to differentiate yourself from other competitors. Remarketing campaigns with consideration messages are a great option. Consider content that provides comparison information, infographics, demonstration or trial videos, consumer testimonials, and reviews are effective ways to build differentiation through education. For traditional marketing, demonstration in stores/conferences would drive the differentiation element through trial.
Lastly, the action or purchase stage is where we want to add value to the product. Online and offline tactics such as coupons, limited-time offers, and free shipping or delivery can help close the deal.
Audience Considerations
Knowing where your audience is and their habits will tell you what channels are the most appropriate. Try to defy stereotypes such as TikTok is only for the young or television is only for older audiences. Large audiences are found in both traditional media and digital. You can segment both by age and interest, but digital media will go further and allow you to target specific areas, genders, and more specific interests. Building a customer persona(s) will greatly help in understanding your audience and choosing what marketing channels are best.
Budget
For smaller budgets, digital media is your best bet. There is no commissions-based sales staff to deal with, you set your spending limits and give the advertiser much more control, and it can be set up fairly quickly. On the other hand, traditional media often requires negotiating rates, expensive creative development, sales commissions, and longer lead times to get the campaign running. These complexities make traditional advertising channels much more expensive.
Analysis and Measurement
Digital channels, hands down, have won the analytics battle. Traditional media often depend on third parties and audience surveys to report results. Most digital channels offer real-time data and allow for quick tweaking to optimize the campaign. On the other hand, I know that the inexperienced or casual media buyer will often feel overwhelmed with the wealth of data at hand. To work around this, you must define where in the marketing funnel and what metrics to pay more attention to.
There is no perfect response to where to put your advertising dollars or if traditional is better than digital marketing. It will all come down to your needs, goals, audience, brand, etc. The best marketers will employ a mixture of both (if the budget allows). I suggest spending 75-80 % on your core channels, and spending the remainder as an experiment budget to try out new things, different channels, or split testing. I once had a client who would put most of her budget on Google display ads and Facebook. I suggest sponsoring a podcast for a few episodes one day. The experiment worked! Podcast listeners responded positively, website traffic increased significantly, and the goal of growing the mailing list proved successful.
Resources
- Hootsuite | Building a Buyer Persona – Step-to-Step Guide
- Funnel Teardowns – In-depth analysis of marketing strategies
- Marketing Funnel Explained – Video with two real-world examples
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