As of December 2016, there are 13.3 million internet users in Australia, 15 million individuals use Facebook, 2.8 million people are Twitter users and 3.6 million have LinkedIn accounts. Almost anyone can see how digital marketing spreads all over these social media networks. But, how can you convince old school marketers that going digital can give them better results than traditional marketing?
Here are some suggestions about how to talk old school marketers into embracing the digital marketing concept:
First, prepare your stats
If your marketing team has made it a habit to do the traditional marketing routines, and is not giving you the results you want for your business, tell them about it. Some people don’t want to give up their old strategies, even non-effective ones.
Start with the big stats, like your target return on investment and how you are not reaching them. You can show them the latest statistics of social media usage, and surveys that indicate that email marketing, SEO and other digital marketing strategies work best. Plan your strategy to talk to your team, prepare your data and explain how it can help your business.
Second, acknowledge the results of their old school marketing efforts but point out the advantages of going digital
Redirect conversations by acknowledging what they say but follow it up with your explanation on how change can work for your business. Remember that it is not easy to coax other people to do what we want them to. So, it is important to explain the benefits of digital marketing such as-
- Online marketing is less expensive than traditional marketing tactics. With the internet and a good marketing plan, you can run an impactful and measurable marketing campaign quickly and cost- cost-effectively.
- It does not require ongoing effort, except for SEO and web analytics. You don’t have to worry about contracts and other long-term commitments to publishers and TV and radio stations. You can schedule social media posts, send emails by bulk and run online ads on and off anytime.
- Target only the people who are most likely to do business with you.
With TV, radio, and newspapers, there’s a huge chance that you are advertising to people who are not interested in your product. That’s a complete waste of money.
Explain the usefulness of digital data
Conversely to traditional marketing, digital marketing has an exceptional targeting ability to focus the marketing plan on potential customers using behavioural targeting, retargeting and search marketing.
- Behavioural targeting: You consider the web pages and sites that your target market visits.
- Retargeting: You only advertise to people who have visited your business’ website previously. Search marketing focuses on general and specific “long tail” search terms that often shows a person’s intent to purchase.
- Online marketing is measurable and trackable.
Unlike traditional marketing tactics, you have available data to determine whether your efforts are effective or not. In Twitter analytics, for example, you can see the number of engagement, impressions and clicks. You can even see the basic demographics of the people who see your posts. You can’t do that in old school marketing. And now onto the final (arguably most important) point in our ‘how to convince old school marketers to go digital’ segment…
Finally, ask them to test the digital marketing tactics… queue *mic drop*
By asking your team to test a wide array of digital marketing strategies, they can evaluate which generates the best response. For sure, they will adjust your marketing program accordingly. If it works, it works.