Most of the articles we read about how brands are moving advertising dollars from traditional to digital media explain the move as a reaction to consumer behavior. It just makes sense to follow consumers online. Now we’re starting to see more articles that mention that the lower cost of digital advertising is a big influence, too.
This chart is from an article on eMarketer.com and documents what percentage of company revenue is being spent on digital marketing, compared with the total marketing budget.
In the article they further go on to explain that digital budgets are growing every year and:
According to Gartner, much of that increase in digital spending will come from marketers reinvesting cost savings. When asked how they were funding their digital marketing programs, 41% answered that they were saving money by replacing traditional tactics with digital tactics, and that this savings was funding further investment. Another 28% responded that they decreased traditional marketing budgets to free up funds for digital.
The cost savings associated with digital media is a huge benefit to marketers and it is a benefit that is hard to measure.
The biggest savings comes from the fact that so much of local digital marketing is free of publication costs and therefore not tracked or appreciated. Providing your dealers with digital landing pages that can be used on their own sites, on their Facebook pages and in your online dealer locator is a very cost-effective way to reach qualified consumers without spending any media money.
The key to taking advantage of free and owned media locally is to add the ability to customize and build landing pages in your online ad builder and then to host the landing pages so you can track the results and insure brand compliance.
Step two is to use this same landing page system to buy local banner ads and Google AdWords.