Sunday, June 19, 2011

Print isn't dead yet...

In meeting with our company for our class project last week, I was struck by both the power of digital marketing as well as the need to still have other marketing media at your disposal… and how marketing must always be coordinated with other divisions within a company.

Our company had launched on the internet and was basically relying on word of mouth and fairly simple SEO to generate business. While successful, it was slow, albeit in keeping with their business plan. It wasn’t until two articles in high profile traditional media were published that their business began to take off. Soon, they had met their one year sales goals in only three weeks. Digital marketing is powerful, but don’t think print media is dead yet. It was only with the boost of print that the company achieved such significant sales.

In fact, the company’s sales may have been too much! They suddenly found themselves unable to supply all the orders they had coming in. While this is a good problem for a company to have, the potential problems in reputation- especially in an online world- if the orders were delayed too long or their customer service failed could have more than offset their sales in the long term. (Only recently did the company feel they were truly getting caught up with demand—so far, their digital marketing strategy has been NOT to generate excessive growth as they simply couldn’t handle the extra orders.) The lesson is that marketing must be coordinated with other divisions within the company for a smooth operation.

Looking at their office, though, it was impressive to see what could be built by a company that essentially operates online only. Our contact noted that online business accounts for only 2% of the sales in this industry, and that with more and more people becoming comfortable buying virtually anything online, they feel they are well poised for future growth. It also made me wonder just what other opportunities for traditionally bought goods to be sold on the internet are still out there…

2 comments:

Ida said...

Ben, I think you bring up a really solid point. A lot of attention is being given to digital this and social that, but from what I've experienced, digital is not the only way to go. At my job, we've used digital marketing as a way to cut costs. The marketing budget was cut by 10%, which at a small non-profit, is a lot. In my boss' opinion, this is not the greatest position to be in, but its "okay" because there was going to be a shift to digital anyway. However, digital is so more difficult to track in my industry, because well, we're behind. So who really has the time to sit down and learn how to use all these tools to measure metrics? Then figure out how to apply them to the field? Hire new staff might be the solution, but there's that 10% budget cut... In my industry, I've found that people still appreciate getting a hard-copy snail-mail print-fold-seal-stamp envelope to our gallery openings. What they don't like is getting a 3 page press release in the mail, because by the time they receive it - it's old news. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think digital marketing is filling an area of marketing (ie fast paced, up-to-date, info-at-your-fingertips areas), but not always where a personal touch is needed.

Scott said...

Ben / Ida - your comments really underscore the idea that digital media isn't necessarily going to kill of existing media; rather, it's an extremely potent complement that potentially allows all existing platforms to collectively work together more effectively.

Ben - I'd be curious to hear which print outlets featured your company. My thought is that the uptick that resulted after the articles wasn't so much because of the medium itself, but maybe because the particular sources are respected and proven.

That, in my mind, is one of the pitfalls of digital media. There's a ton of upside because there are so many outlets, but who curates all the editorials and content? A site might feature a product or company, but if the site has no clout, does that really help?

I think the most effective multi-platform marketing campaigns are those that deploy credible and established existing media outlets for buzz, then feed off that momentum in the digital space (possibly through further editorializing or e-commerce).