Digital To Overtake TV Ad Spending; What's a Retail Marketer To Do?

Last week, I kept coming across articles on this revelation from the latest Forrester study::

Digital to overtake TV ad spending in 2 years – Forrester Research

Perhaps you saw them too, and wondered what that means for your company. Huge brands like Coca-Cola are pouring tons of new money into digital. But if you're a regional brand or retailer, what does that mean for you. Since almost all our clients are regional, we’ve been thinking about that too. And, at Yaffe, we think it opens up two different strategic possibilities where you can gain an advantage over your competition.

The first, and more likely, scenario is that regional retailers will be a bit behind this trend. The Forrester report says that the gains in digital aren’t being taken away from TV budgets, but are due to new additional money big brands are putting into digital. Regional retailers are less likely to have that extra money at their disposal. Many regional marketer and retailers also tend to stick to methods they know have worked for them in the past and are less willing to leap into new ventures than their big brand counterparts.

This gives you the opportunity to get ahead of your competition by being one of the first to embrace this medium. There are proven tactics in digital marketing that work very well for driving not only traffic but sales for large ticket retailers. We have been able to help clients connect with customers online who are ready to buy and drive them into their stores.If you were to be the first among your competitors to embrace digital, then you would become the local brand who owns that space in the consumers mind.

The second scenario is that your competitors have already moved to a heavier digital presence and have left you behind. Rather than trying to catch up, we believe there are strategies you can use in traditional media to create a competitive advantage. Using data and digital tools, you can laser target your direct mail, email and even your TV buys to hit customers and potential customers most likely to buy.And you can connect with them where and when they are open to your messaging. This could give you an advantage in more traditional media that your competition isn’t playing as dominant a role in as they have in the past.

Of course, you could deploy strategies taking a 2-pronged approach using the best of both of the above scenarios. You can better focus your traditional media targeting while jumping into the digital arena to maximize your marketing dollars.

Hopefully, this give you some food for thought and ideas on how to take advantage of the coming shift in media allocation. However, if you'd like to pick my brain further in how you can employ these strategies, just give me a call. I'd be happy to chat.

Michael Morin, providing free brain droppings at 248.262.9630