Digital Advertising Methods against Traditional Advertising - Essay Example

?“THE RELIABLITY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF DIGITAL ADVERTISING METHODS AGAINST TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING” CONTENTS Number Topic Pages Introduction 2 Importance of Advertisement in an Economic Activity 2 3 Areas of Digital Advertising 3-5 4 Limitations of traditional advertising versus digital advertising 6-7 5 Cost Factor in Digital Advertising 8-9 6 Importance of Feasibility Study in digital advertising 10 7 A Case Study 11-12 Bibliography 13 Introduction Advertising is persuading audience to speed up profitable activity; it is because if an organization is offering a service or a product then it needs to be known otherwise due to the deficiency of information about the service or product the consumers may not be able to tap the supplier. In this study of digital economics, the focal point is to highlight the economic activity that can be achieved through digital advertising and to distinguish the reliability, effectiveness and cost factors in a traditional advertising to that of digital advertising. The basic difference between the two classes of advertising is: in traditional advertising the advertising mediums are conventional such as newspapers, classifieds, magazines, periodicals, journals, billboards, posters, radio, physical mails, and televisions whilst on the other hand in digital advertising; all sorts of advertising which is done through the medium of websites, via internet and mobile phones are included. However digital advertising is not simple just because it focuses on web; however it is an emerging discipline and has several different areas in it. Advertising can be made for other purposes in addition to business and economics; however in this study advertising is only discussed with the perspective of economics and commerce. In this study the elaboration is made on the limitations of traditional advertising coupled with study of cost factors involved in digital advertising. In the end a successful case study regarding US law firm is considered on the issue of product liability, their targeted audience, how digital advertising assist them to target only their desired customers and boost their economic activity. 1. Importance of Advertisement in an Economic Activity Advertisement is the backbone of any economic activity. It is through advertising methods that awareness of any commodity or service is created. After the process of awareness the consumer sector accumulates this awareness in the shape of knowledge then through effective advertising, commodity or service becomes fabulous and is liked by the consumer sector. After the process of liking and fondness a position evolves that is called as preference, it means that a consumer prefer the product against all other competitive products and through advertising the product is in a phase of likelihood of acquisition. Then after this consumer behavior changes to conviction on the basis of his preference and this is the reason; the product or service is being purchased. Therefore the more good advertising the more sales, more exposure of organization and more economic activity can be achieved. Since the rate of economic activity is directly proportional to that of profit therefore effective advertising will yield more economic activity and that will result in more returns and benefits. It should also be considered that advertisement for an economic activity is essential and also crucial but on the other hand, proper advertisement based on adequate research is needed to boost the economic activity of a business. If advertisement is made just for the sake of advertisement without any proper planning and evaluation then it can impact very roughly. Therefore before advertisement of any product or service a research should be made for advertisement and proper objectives and methodologies should be defined with realistic approach then only it can be successful for initiating and accelerating the economic activity. 2. Areas of Digital Advertising Digital advertising is also called internet marketing. Internet marketing is not a confined area of advertising however it is interesting to note that digital advertising is a type of advertising which is continuously evolving with new dimensions and areas. Website Display marketing, E-mail marketing, social media advertising, affiliate marketing, search engine marketing, mobile advertising, blog marketing, contextual advertising; cost per impressions advertising, cost per click advertising, and cost per action advertising etc are all areas of digital marketing. Website Display marketing is one of the simple tools of digital advertising. It means that an organization wants to publicize on some specific website in order to market their product, so the organization coordinates with the website administration, negotiates with them and buy a specified area on that website for a period of time, the website administration displays the organization’s commodity ad on their website. Now the users on the website can see the ad, users can even click it or note it if it is relevant to them. Therefore this type of digital advertising is not that effective as it does not keep a specific record of how the viewers are coming and showing response to the ad so this type of digital advertising is not much deviant to that of traditional advertising. E-mail marketing is a type of digital marketing and advertising in which a list of e-mail addresses are subjected to a product’s marketing mail electronically. The list of e-mail addresses can be of any specific community, which is focused to be targeted. Here it is not necessary that every recipient will read the electronic mail because it can be taken as spam. Social media advertising is a powerful digital advertising, it is because of the reason it gives advertisers more powerful tool to target any specific audience. People use social media networks and all their information is in the record of social media website. Therefore advertisers are given authoritative options to select demographic, age limit, specific association with a group or institution and more. Through this social media advertising advertisers can more specifically target their audience. Affiliate advertising is a type of advertising in which promotion is launched by small and large publishers for some specific purpose. It can be directed traffic to use or buy a service or a product of advertiser. So in this type of advertising the affiliates are paid only when there is some measurable achievement in their campaigns. It is also a type of digital advertising since ads are placed through digital mediums. Search engine marketing is one of the most powerful tools ever in digital marketing; this is because it is a type of marketing where only relevant users are targeted. For reason that users require any information which they look for through search engines, if a company formulates website based on relevant specific key words, then if users search such keywords they will be directed to that website through search engines. It means that users are looking for the same info which is provided at their website, this adds relevancy to advertisement. In digital advertising contextual advertising is the core of all types of advertising. It means that the ads are to be displayed only on those sites which have relevant and appropriate content; publishers are paid in this advertisement on basis of per impression, per click and per action. Cost per impression is a type of contextual digital advertising in which publishers are paid just for the traffic viewing the website and the ad; normally cost per impression is paid to the publisher on per thousand impressions. Cost per click is the cost of the same ad which is being clicked by any user of that website. Normally cost per click is greater than cost per impression, and with the ad click the user is usually directed to the advertising company’s website. Cost per action is a third type of advertising on the basis of contextual ads. Cost per action is most expensive and relevant to any advertising or marketing company. It is because of the reason that a user views that advertisement on some website and then clicks it and then after being directed to the advertising website, the viewer becomes a digital customer on that website and makes some action as acquisition. So the cost of such advertisement is considerably more as compare to the cost of per click and per impression. Blog marketing is also a similar tool of digital advertising but due to blogs the particular industry as a whole is targeted more relevantly. In blog marketing a company builds the credibility about its product by sharing relevant and authentic knowledge and commenting on other blogs too. In this way an inclusive marketing is made, but some industrialized firms want to take maximum through blogs in just little labor and time, which is not possible, a complete framework is there for developing a blog to market a specific product. In blog marketing the users that are generated through content and link building on other blogs, becomes permanent users of marketing blog. For relevancy of a blog, the blog marketing company must keep patience and try to create an environment in the blog so that people can discuss their issues and try to directly pose their question so that experts can respond to them. 3. Limitations of Traditional Advertising Versus Digital Advertising Traditional advertising is still immensely used and there are few limitations that are associated with this type of advertisement in contrast with digital advertisement. The people reaction to traditional advertisement is not every time welcoming and generous. Most of the people think that advertisement is just a promotion of some specific commodity and it is likely a waste of time. Even in TV shows, radio programs and in the streets people do not welcome advertisement. If anybody is watching some program for example some football match and in between there is series of advertisements, then normally the channel is switched to some other or is muted off. This is to be called as force advertisement rather relevant advertisement and sometimes it creates a negative impact about the product itself. The viewer of such ads becomes psychologically allergic to the product. Since the audience is not targeted and they are not given a choice of freedom except to switch the channel off, or to change the channel, or to change their sight. Therefore this type of advertising which is known as traditional advertising is mostly not that focused. The choice of traditional advertisement also depends on the type of product that has to be marketed, if it is a type of product that falls in mass consumption like fast moving consumer’s goods or food stuff then traditional advertisement is likely to produce good outputs. Since in mass product consumption there is no discrimination and everybody is included in the targeted audience, there is no discrimination of sex, nationality, age, wealth and others. But if a similar product is narrowed down in a case that it may be an expensive product although everybody can consume then traditional advertising in areas of lower class will be inappropriate. Therefore defining the product class is equally important, but if it is inexpensive that anybody can afford then the product can be advertised on mass traditional networks. The basic limitation that can be understood in traditional advertising method is about refining and targeting the appropriate audience. For example if a product is manufactured for females then through traditional advertisement men are equally subjected to that advertisement. Hence the limitation is there because of the fact that the cost of a specific billboard displayed in a specific locality in usually same for all product advertisements either the product belong to a specific sex, class, age or it belongs to all. This means same expense through a traditional advertisement but different returns for two different products. It is quite difficult in a traditional world to specifically track the returns through traditional advertisement. Sales record can somehow show the effectiveness of traditional advertising but the exact proportion and exact results through traditional advertisement cannot be tracked easily. Unlike traditional advertisement, in most of the cases of digital advertisement; every activity can be easily tracked and the effectiveness of a specific digital advertisement can be calculated easily. Hence the economic activity through digital advertisement can be calculated more easily than the traditional advertisement. In digital advertisements, diverse campaigns can be made. There is too much customization possible in digital advertisements, whereas traditional advertisement does not offer flexibility and customization. 4. Cost Factor in Digital Advertising The cost factor in digital advertising can be even more if a proper campaign, adjoining and tapping all resources of digital advertising, is made. The returns are more productive but a suitable marketing organization within any industrial organization is needed. Digital advertising requires the use of technology, human resource, continuous labor, all time engaging activities, process complications, phase of creation, sustainability, tracking and measurement etc. It means with high level of customization and effectiveness digital advertising is relatively expensive than ordinary traditional methods. The traditional advertisement method does not involve continuous labor cost, neither it involve the usage of technology in-house but in digital advertising an organization which is focusing on marketing digitally must have all. It means digital advertisement will evolve a new business function, with business structures, internal agencies and outside clients. The organization will also need managing figures to handle all the processes and also ensure the effectiveness of the business function. The whole process of digital advertisement starts with forming a team of I.T., in which there are technical experts regarding web development, search engine optimization and graphics additional team includes content writers, marketing analysts, business analysts, marketing researchers, SEO labor optimizers, Ad Campaigns managers etc. This means an expense of huge labor with additive expense of adequate technology for them to work on is required in digital advertising campaign. For digital advertising there are few possessions that must be owned by the advertisers themselves like the company website, auction channels on that website, content, videos, and thriving product experiences. Moreover the marketing videos must be present on different websites like YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler and others. If the marketing videos will be present on such websites which are seriously dense with traffic then it can generate viewers on advertising website through searches of similar keywords on their websites. In addition with the presence of video networks the digital advertisers must have media hardware gateways. Furthermore the digital advertisers should be present on all social networks like Twitter, Face-book, and LinkedIn etc. In extra there are picture and slideshow sharing environments the company must also target these environments through their presentations as well to properly target the digital resources. The website of the digital advertisers should be optimized on the keywords that match advertising product, if a user searches any of the optimized keywords the website should come in the first page of search engines. This is how an effective digital marketing is done. Besides this the digital advertising website must also give the E-commerce facility, because the digital advertising is directly proportional to digital economics, if the facility of buying on the website is not available major part of advertising will get in vain. By understanding the overall sphere of digital advertising, it can be clearly seen that digital advertising as a whole is a huge investment with lucrative and more focused returns. It should be kept in notice that digital advertising is the essence of digital economics as in the case of traditional economics and advertising. 5. Importance Of Feasibility Study In Digital Advertising Feasibility study is the most important and necessary part of digital advertising. An assessment should be made that how much digital advertising must be done, in which areas digital advertising is effective, how much labor force is required, what technical proficiencies are needed and so on. The reason of doing feasibility study can be comprehended by the fact that without making feasibility study in digital advertising, the company cannot evaluate the effectiveness of digital advertising. If parameters like payback period, return of investment are not known then there are serious dangers associated with the huge investment. Moreover the scope of digital advertising is also defined by the feasibility study, without the prior knowledge of objectives and goals embedded with the digital advertising, there are serious concerns that the project may fail. As it was highlighted earlier that digital advertising is more expensive than traditional advertising methods, therefore a huge investment on any economic activity itself requires feasibility analysis. Digital advertising is a part of digital economics and the success of digital economics depends on how good digital advertising is done. Likewise the success of effective digital advertising depends on the feasibility analysis. So feasibility analysis of digital advertising is not only the voluntary phase of digital advertising rather it is a mandatory step for a successful and effective digital advertising campaign. 6. A Case Study The case study is about a US law firm who needed to target specific audience through digital advertising. The traditional method would be more expensive in this case since the targeted audience was little and scattered throughout the USA and Europe. The US law firm wanted clients to hire them in order to file lawsuit against DePuy for manufacturing a sub standard hip implant product. The objective was identified so, because in the year 2010, a recall of a product was issued; that was implanted instead of an effected hip bone. The product was manufactured by DePuy a supplementary unit of Johnson and Johnson. A single lawsuit was potentially enough to return millions of dollars to the claimer and thus delivering the law firm million dollars business. A single litigation process could yield so much business. The law-firm was bit aware of the digital marketing, and since the recall of the products was already issued there was maximum probability of winning any claim of such client who was implanted with defected hip product. The law-firm only needed to advertise their credibility and convince the effected persons to hire them to file a lawsuit against DePuy. They had two choices either to go to a conventional method of advertising which would be in this case more expensive because audience is scattered throughout the USA and also in the Europe as well. The second choice is digital advertising which can be relatively more effective since a scattered population was targeted, moreover it should also be kept in notice that 93,000 persons received the faulty hip implant and these people were resident of USA, and Europe. The US law-firm’s marketing strategy was developed; a content and web development firm in a third world country was hired with few managing people in the USA. The website was optimized in a couple of months and the website appeared on top of search engines in relevant keywords, generating traffic to the website. In addition to it the US law firm also placed contextual ads through Google ad-sense on relevant keywords generating more relevant and focused traffic. The keywords were similar in meaning to that of hiring a lawyer in that area. Generating traffic was not the objective; the objective was to convert this traffic into clients who could ask the law-firm to file a lawsuit against DePuy. For this reason of converting viewers into clients, the US law firm, which is considered in this study, developed a knowledge base on that website regarding the issue of hip implant and DePuy recall. A comprehensive guide for patients was also developed which offered free legal advice on the issue of malfunctioning of DePuy hip implant and the way forward. This whole process of digital advertising accelerated inquiries, in which some of the inquiries converted into clients and the US law-firm earned more clients and this how the economic activity was not only initiated but also amazingly accelerated. Hence in this real case study digital advertising was much more successful than ordinary advertising methods, digital advertising did not only deliver the business but economic assets were also developed that can contribute in future economic activities. Bibliography Burton, J. Understanding the Economics of Digital Compared to Traditional Advertising and Media Services. Ferguson, R. B. (2008). A Battle Is Brewing Over Online Behavioral Advertising. EWeek . Graydon, S. (2003 ). Made You Look - How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know. Annick Press. Johnson, J. D. Advertising Today. Kaiser, U., & Song, M. (2009). Do media consumers really dislike advertising? . Kleppner, O. Advertising Procedure. Prentice-Hall. Packard, V. The Hidden Persuaders. Petley, J. (2002). Advertising. Wakolbinger, L. (2009). The Effectiveness of combining Online and Print Advertisement. Read More