Tweaking your secret recipe: Adding brick and mortar foundations to your digital strategy
Digital is digital, right?
Wrong.
The web isn't Vegas. What happens here doesn't stay here. Every customer has a lifecycle, and your digital presence has a place in that lifecycle, maybe even a big one, but it's not typical for the whole lifecycle to be digital, at least not yet. That leaves brands and businesses with a choice; how far do you go digital? The modern marketing mix is about more than your website and social. It's about finding ways to attract the attention of consumers where they are, which, unless they're addicted to Google glass, is typically somewhere in the real world, staring at a digital device.
The transition from, and ping pong between, the digital world and the real world isn't a predictable one. A lot of people would like it to be, and many build systems and models to try to make it so, but the reality is, we're just not there yet. Consumers can sometimes pull the trigger on a purchase in the real world that they have been researching online for months, or vice versa. Price, placement, payment options, and third party credibility are variables that every consumer interacts with in their own, personal way. Building the value that touches their individual core sensibilities is what great marketing is about. Finding the right places to make sure your audience sees that marketing is what great advertising is all about.
Without creative hand holding, doing either well is a crapshoot. While advertising strategy may be moving digital, marketing is firmly where it's always been, creating strong value and responding to market demands. Where marketing often falters is in keeping advertising grounded in realistic measurables, which digital provides in spades, as well as, strong outcome focus, which digital, for all its unicorns and rainbows, is still a little wishy-washy in. Like anything, doing one thing well isn't very helpful if you do the other thing poorly...
All's not lost though. Looking back to brick and mortar visibility to provide a stable ground for your digital strategy is not only alive, it's well. Moving traffic from print to digital might not be measurable by digital standards, but it has measurable impact on outcomes, typically revenue based ones, if it's done right. Billboards, magazines, and targeted placements may not be as streamlined as a Facebook ad, but neither do most Facebook ads sell the first time your audience sees them. Buying confidence may end in the digital world, but it can sometimes be the case, and often is, that a real world presence provides a level of stability and reality that most consumers can't get from the digital one, yet.
Even if your whole sales strategy is digital in nature and based on web stores, it's possible to find brick and mortar partners to display your products, ads, or brand. Finding creative connections to be real world relevant not only makes sense, it pays. The best digital strategies provide real world basis for digital interaction. Ask Coke. If where you find your consumer is in front of your product, what better way to ask them to take an action right then and there. The more their digital world fits into what they're doing right then and there in the real world, the softer the nudge needed to get them to go there with you.