Time. The one thing none of us can control and yet the one thing we all seemingly need more of. Information, or the consumption of it is one of the key reasons why we don’t seem to have enough time, and it really is no wonder when you look at the world in 2013.
Studies have shown that only 100 years ago people would’ve been exposed to the equivalent of around 50 books of information in their entire lifetimes. With the digital age firmly in swing we are now being exposed to something like the equivalent of around 200 newspapers worth of information a day, and those are the broadsheet editions.
So it’s no wonder when I’m talking to people about social media that the two questions I’ll be guaranteed to be asked revolve around consumption of data, and time. Where do you start when users of Twitter are generating 500 million tweets per day?
It’s an interesting topic to consider. Just how much information can we take, consume and use? Perhaps more importantly, to turn this to the marketing people and business owners I talk to, how can they possibly know what is worth reading or acting on? And finally what does it all mean?
For many years us marketing folk have always struggled with the term ROI (Return on Investment). Much easier for Production to put a nice round figure next to costs and efficiency or the Sales team to take all the credit for their deals. Yet it always seems to be the marketing department that is left trying to find justifications for the latest innovative direct mail campaign, or the radio interview for the managing director, or the Christmas advert with the multi million pound budget. Sure we could take a little credit for sales impact, but the sales team were doing that very nicely thank you.
Then along comes the digital marketing age, the age of personalisation, tracking, analytics, reach, statistics and automated intelligent response and things start looking a whole lot rosier in the land of marketing and ROI.
Or is it?
Any social media expert, or for that matter marketing expert, will rightly push the advantages digital marketing, in all its guises, has added to the marketers armoury. Indeed, some of the points listed such as analytics and statistical analysis have added a sophisticated layer of detail into the marketers essential tool bag.
Even better is the fact that the ongoing development of systems for managing multiple campaigns across multiple channels such as Hootsuite or Tweet Deck or indeed the recent developments within Google Analytics give marketing teams a central hub to conduct this analysis from. Integrating your SEO information with your social media activity around your web traffic is processed in minutes from such platforms.
Reams and reams of information (ironically often still printed out in large reports) can be generated showing in the minute-ist detail where a user has gone, what they’ve done and where they decided to head for the next 3 weeks. Yet marketers (and the boards of directors they report into) are finding a new headache, no longer Return on Investment but Rapid Overload of Information…there is just so much of it.
Importantly, this is all really vital and superb information for informing and moulding effective marketing campaigns, aimed and targeted squarely at the customers and prospects that will buy your products and services.
As a huge advocate of digital marketing ,yet someone with a solid grounding in years of marketing without this wonderful tool, it’s sometimes easy for even me to get distracted with the hugely powerful statistics just one-click of a mouse away. They have added a depth of detail to our marketing information that used to take us years of research. Yet in minutes (though better over a couple of weeks) I can now distinguish key demographics, preferences and products/services for businesses and refine marketing campaigns overnight.
Yet in the same way we take one look at our Twitter feeds, bookmarked article list or email inbox and wonder how we are going to get through the day, this huge amount of information at our finger tips doesn’t distract from the same age old truth.
The only really important statistic that will tell you if your marketing activity is a success is sales, and that will still only happen if your marketing campaigns are focused on the right audience and delivering the right messaging.
And by the way, your social media activity isn’t excused from that.
Simon Brooke is a Director and creative thinker at Happy Creative, a strategic marketing and creative branding agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk or @Happy_Creative
