Digital Marketing Success: There’s No Time Like the Present, Literally
Posted Jan. 12, 2011 by Tom Curtes
Filed under: Digital / Interactive
Laughlin Constable’s book club met today. The book: The On Demand Brand by Rick Mathieson. The piece provides “10 rules for digital marketing success in an anytime, everywhere world.” It’s chock full of examples of marketers who are taking advantage of the onslaught of emerging communications touchpoints. Examples of apps, augmented reality, mobile coupons, mobile web, QR codes, geo-location and the like. With so many options for marketers and consumers alike, I found myself asking “I wonder which of these technologies will still be around in 10 years?”
I couldn’t help but look backwards for some perspective on this question. One unlikely resource I looked at for insight was Monopoly: The .com Edition. I dug this game out of the cupboard over the holidays and was amazed to see what has changed since the game was introduced in 2000. Some of the biggest names on the board are only memories now. Excite@Home, a high-speed cable internet service provider, was the .com version equivalent of “Park Place.” That company hasn’t existed since 2002. Other throwbacks included Lycos, Alta Vista and Ask Jeeves, all names that faded from our daily vernacular long ago.
A recent piece on NPR also discussed technological advancements and extinctions over the past 10 years. One notable takeaway came when a group of middle-aged respondents was asked “Can anybody tell me what a PDA is, please?” The answer? “You mean public display of affection?” In just a few short years, the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) was not only replaced by things such as the iPhone, but seems to have almost been forgotten by time.
But you don’t have to look back a decade to witness these rapid comings and goings. Think Friendster. Think MySpace. Think… QR codes? Marketers have been watching QR codes for a few years now, trying to determine the perfect time to jump in and take advantage of them. Looking at the stats, it appears that the time may be now. Smart phone penetration is up to 25%. QR code usage increased by 700% in 2010. The tipping point must be near. And then, I saw this. Google Goggles is now doing essentially what QR codes can do, but without those ugly pixelated squares. Sometimes, given the exponential advancement of technology, emerging platforms don’t even have a chance to emerge.
So, as marketers, what’s the key to digital marketing success? How do we approach this ever-evolving landscape? Given constant change, should we focus on short-term or long-term ROI? How do we know which technologies are still going to be around in 10 years? Does it matter? I don’t think so. While it’s important to keep up with the changes and be aware of all the possibilities, when looking at short-term ROI, there’s really only one question that needs to be answered from a marketer’s standpoint: “is my consumer using it now?” We can rest assured that things are going to change in the future, and we’ll have to change with them to stay top-of-mind for our consumers. But if an outlet makes sense today, if our consumers are using it, so should we, as marketers. If the outlet evolves into something different tomorrow, then we need to change our course, something that we’re all getting used to already.
