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    Why digital advertising still makes sense during an economic turmoil

    Synopsis

    These advertisements might not convert into actual sales, but the sole motive of keeping your product in the customer’s mind can be achieved evidently.

    digital-advertisingGetty Images

    Proper education about digital advertisements and transparent results will go a long way in securing a permanent seat at the marketing strategies.

    By Amitt Sharma

    The world is under the immense pressure to adapt to the new normal as COVID-19 engulfs the whole world under it. No matter what vaccine is at what stage, it will take quite some time to get back into what we perceive as normal. In these times, many organizations decided to cut down heavily on their marketing budgets. Recently, Google slashed 50% of its marketing budget just so that they can live to fight another day. As per a survey conducted by ‘MarketingWeek’, only 7% of brands are utilizing this pandemic as an opportunity. Now, the question arises, is it viable to invest in marketing during this pandemic?

    Recently, there has been a significant decrease in traffic on the road and even though TV viewership increased by 40%, it could not match the spike in the internet consumption. A whopping increase of 70% was noted post the arrival of COVID-19 in internet consumption. Keeping these numbers in mind, marketers can benefit from digital advertisements in a world confined to our bedrooms.

    These advertisements might not convert into actual sales, but the sole motive of keeping your product in the customer’s mind can be achieved evidently.

    Apart from the mind-retention strategy, digital advertisements are also a low-cost investment as compared to offline advertisements. This difference in cost is a major reason why many marketers are investing heavily on the digital side of the market as the budget constraints tighten day by day. Apart from the budget constraints, advertisers are also facing the issue of refining the target audience. A consequential amount of the budget is spent on audiences who are either not interested in the product or simply do not have the budget for it.

    For example, a certain fitness startup started stacking up an affordable bicycle called ‘My Bike’ and turned their target audience to beginner fitness enthusiasts instead of the ‘commuting on the bicycle’ audience. This, in turn, led to a noteworthy increase in sales of ‘My Bike’, and pretty soon a waiting period for these bicycles was implemented. For this fitness startup, digital advertisement proved to be a better advertising model compared to the traditional one. For many brands, the scenario is completely different.

    In the automotive sector, a dip in demand and stress in the sector was already visible before the advent of COVID-19 and they needed something to get out of it. For automotive marketers, the budget was already dwindling and the sales graph showed no improvement. Many studies showed that the post COVID world would switch to used car market instead of new cars. This created a challenge for the automotive industry and they decided to prepare a channel of the contactless car buying experience instead of channeling their energy into the brick and mortar version of it. This was done to increase the digital presence of the automotive industry and to reduce the fear of COVID-19 while buying a new car. For most of the automotive brands, it proved to be a blessing and the sales graph started showing vital signs.

    For what it’s worth, digital ads also breathe a specific sense of engagement with the users. It lets a brand understand their customer’s behavior from time to time. This tracking of user engagement is especially helpful during this economic turmoil as it reduces a significant amount of cost involved in manufacturing a product that is not very well perceived by their customers.

    The world is now in lockdown and going through a tremendous amount of hardship and spending on your brand’s exposure through traditional marketing platforms is expensive and is less effective, whereas, the digital aspect of it is cheaper and generates better exposure for a brand. Coupled with an effective target audience, a brand might even gather loyal customers through this pandemic.

    Digital also has the transparency of the cost incurred during an ad campaign. With traditional marketing campaigns one had to guess how their ads are performing by comparing the sales graph before and after the campaign. With the digital aspect of advertising, a brand can monitor when, where, and how to spend their budget on advertising. This lets a brand’s marketing budget tread longer and wider to its audience.

    This intelligent way of portraying a brand’s ads on specific platforms is now prevailing with the top brands. The world is changing and how brands change themselves according to it, matters. Proper education about digital advertisements and transparent results will go a long way in securing a permanent seat at the marketing strategies. Weeding out the cons of digitally portraying ads and rectifying it through the offline channels can also help build a hybrid strategy for most brands. But until we let the pros sink into brands, let us keep ourselves safe by wearing masks.

    (The writer, CEO & Founder, VDO.AI)
    (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com.)
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