Digital marketing: is it getting you in or cutting you out?

Precise ROI measurability. User behaviour micro-tracking. Campaign flexibility. The benefits of going digital with your marketing have been harped on by digital marketers and marketing agencies for as long as ‘Digital’ has existed. But how deeply are you – as a business and a marketer - thinking about the nature of this beast and its effect on the audiences that it is unleashed on?

At first, digital was for the web, then it went mobile, and now it can help you target even wearable devices. As your ability to reach your target audience - anywhere and anytime you want to - rises exponentially, it also raises the question: how intrusive is too intrusive when it comes to digital?

Is showing your ad to a user when they are searching for a competitor’s product too intrusive? Is following your user to any website they visit, and showing your ad to them there too intrusive? Is popping up your ad on an article the user is reading, and thus forcing them to interact with it too intrusive? Emailing them every time they visit your website? Sending a push notification every time they open your app? Where do you draw the line when it comes to push marketing with digital?

How does forcing the user to desperately look for an option to skip the ad, or even to stop it appearing altogether, serve your larger marketing goals? Digital marketing might have redefined the pace and reach of your marketing efforts but it does not alter a basic fact of marketing that an unwilling audience does not a customer make.

While the pre-digital forms of marketing were limited in their ability to reach audiences, and consequently to influence their behaviour, they had the advantage of being slow saturators due to their non-intrusive nature of delivery. Digital might be doing the job too well and too quickly for its own good.

You have to think about finding the right balance between reach and overexposure without getting too excited about the ‘numbers’ that digital is delivering for you. Potential customers harried by an overdose of your digital reach are the last thing your business needs.