Here’s an interesting article from the Chicago Tribune that does a good job of capturing the essence of digital advertising as it relates to “mainstream” advertising.
The article cites a lot of statistics about the growth of digital advertising and how it has eclipsed everything except television spending and might one day soon, even exceed that.
A good quote in the article is attributed to Tony Weisman president of Digitas Chicago
“Weisman said that online advertising will get even smarter going forward, creating an ecosystem that will track and target individual shoppers throughout the buying process. With that continued evolution, and mainstream media migrating to digital platforms, the fastest-growing advertising category circa 2012 may be increasingly difficult to define, or perhaps even an anachronism in the not-too-distant future.”
In general and when done properly, digital is cheaper, better and faster than the old mediums we have had to rely on in the past. It can be easily targeted, tracked, modified, published and then republished like nothing we have ever seen.
I think the digital story is even more powerful on the local level especially when you consider all of the ways retailers use things like social media that doesn’t even hit their advertising budget nor your co-op account.
The challenge is to make sure that the message your retailers are publishing online is in sync with your brand and your message. And, changes at a moments notice.
The best way to help your dealers take advantage of digital media and for you to control the messaging is by utilizing a modern online marketing portal the helps create, track, publish and republish dealer co-branded messages on a platform that you control. The message can be in the form of a landing page, a micro site, an e-promo page, a facebook tab, banner ad, email effort and on and on.
If your marketing portal only helps retailers create printed pieces, it’s time for an upgrade to one that works for both old and new media.