Digital is Dead

OK – as headlines go it’s not the most accurate I've ever written, because ‘digital’ was never a thing – living or dead – in the first place, just as ‘offline’ has never been a thing. Digital is just a way of doing lots of other things.

Digital is Dead is just my ham-fisted way of saying that isolating digital marketing in the way we all have, is a thing of the past – or at least it should be. Remember those nasty villains, the Borg in Star Trek? Neither human nor robot, one had assimilated the other to become a new being. Well, that’s how digital marketing (the robot if you like) and traditional marketing (the human) have assimilated each other to become…well…just marketing.

This message has been touted around digital circles for some time now, but it takes a while for everyone else to catch up as little things such as business, sales, product, staff, plans and budgets seem to get in the way of high-fallutin’ marketing principles.

Of course, there is a whole industry built around digital and those people will probably argue the point. As will anyone with ‘digital’ in their job title – and that includes me by the way. But as above-the-line and below-the-line became through-the-line, so we must now adapt to the new reality and think of marketing as a series of complimentary or connected activities that take place in or on a variety of platforms and consumer spaces; substrate, virtual, outdoor, aural, visual…etc.

The key as always is to ensure that we use the channels that best fit our marketing requirements and use whatever tools we have to hand to ensure our message not only gets through, but is also engaging, relevant, persuasive and accurate. Digital channels will feature highly on most marketers’ or business owner’s hit-lists I imagine as that’s where so many of our customers are and can be reached. The blogs I posted recently about SEO and convergence are still totally relevant, but not at the expense of other forms of marketing.

A big lesson we also need to take on board is that we, the marketers, no longer have control. That now belongs to our customers, or potential customers. It’s they who decide which device to use, which channels will best serve their purpose when researching and which products to buy – or whether to buy at all. So, to engage with these people reading their Sunday papers, swiping their iPad, relaxing in front of the TV, driving to work, playing games on their phones or sitting at their desks at work, we need to be everywhere, at the same time, with the same message or ‘message story’. This last part is critical. You can change the part of the message you’re communicating to suit the channel, but change the message itself and you lose your customer then and there.

So, yes, get your SEO right, go native with your advertising, craft your PPC advertising and landing pages, place your ads in the national press, brief your PR company, write your content, tweet and post and run that outdoor campaign, but remember to assimilate everything into everything else.

When planning or budgeting for marketing investment, don’t think of ‘digital’ as a separate item – think customer, message, channel. Ensure your communications agency can tie many strands together from content creation for blogs or landing pages to distributing media messages and helping out with SEO strategy, etc. This is where Travel PR currently sits, recognising as we do that ALL channels are important, but the message is more so – and the customer most important of all. Feel free to get in touch for a chat.