A Few Rules for Finding Digital Discipline
Six rules to achieve a lasting balance between happy digital consumers weighed down with ad exposures and marketers stacking up their conversions and spend.
Six rules to achieve a lasting balance between happy digital consumers weighed down with ad exposures and marketers stacking up their conversions and spend.
In my last column, “The Digital All-You-Can-Eat Buffet,” we explored the necessity of discipline in narrowing your digital tactics to those that you can afford and support. We may long to incorporate every device, channel, and targeting program available to us now in our expanded opportunity set, but it’s rare that we have the required budget available or can pull off such a fractured approach successfully. There is another kind of companion discipline that marketers have to exercise and that’s in moderating their consumer touch points so that targeted audience segments are not uncomfortably or unproductively bombarded with messaging at all points in their digital day.
Without citing a million studies, let’s start with the premise that consumers are spending more of their day connected. They use multiple devices and are more reliant on them, have more usage occasions as tools and apps have become more relevant to more daily activities, and share more information over time as they trade some personal or contact information in exchange for the functionality or content they desire. Consumers use multiple screens at once, have new social patterns of interaction online, and generally consume more content online with each passing day. All of the trends are up and the impact for both consumers and marketers is a growing set of opportunities to reach and influence consumers online.
The trick for marketers is to moderate those touch points so that the consumer continues to have a comfortable online experience that also motivates desired actions at a rate that justifies the marketing spend that supports the ecosystem. Picture a ledge balanced on a razor-sharp point. On the one side, you have happy digital consumers weighed down with some ad exposures and information sharing. On the other side, you have marketers stacking up their conversions and spend. It’s far too easy to tip that precarious balance, and once you find just the right balance, it’s gone in an instant as new circumstances or sensitivities rock your consumers and your carefully constructed plan.
We need a few rules if we are to achieve a productive, lasting balance.
Remember that it’s not just online ads. It’s also the emails you send and the catalogs they receive, and the time they spend in your social communities and all the traditional ad exposures they have every day. If you’re seeing email open rates decrease or opt-out rates increase, pay attention. If you see decreasing engagement rates in social communities or click or conversion rates decreasing in ad spend, consider frequency as an important variable that deserves scrutiny among the other obvious candidates.
Consumers are reacting to the sometimes overwhelming volume of messaging online and both overly aggressive online marketers as well as careful marketers are sharing the pain of the consumer response. Truly, customer-centric marketing places a priority on protecting the customer experience online. This is not only the responsible way to market, but the smart way that maximizes the impact of your efforts and builds toward long-term success.