What CEOs Need to Know About Digital Advertising

In a digital age, authentic storytelling is critical. There’s no more making up a story about your brand to compensate for deficiencies. A compelling story attracts and keeps customers, and a story that doesn’t ring true drives them away.

How do you tell your brand’s authentic story? For the past 20 years, we’ve helped major companies and brands find their authentic self.

We start with conducting executive team interviews, which can uncover the company’s vision, culture and approach to customer service.  Front-line research – going to their locations, doing secret shops and overtly speaking to people about challenges with their products—reveal problems on the front line, which we share with the executive team.  Executive team interviews also allow the client to share their biggest problems and key goals. We often ask important questions to get to the heart of the personality of the brand, such as: is your brand a Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Branson or Kobe Bryant? These types of creative questions help reveal crucial traits behind the brand that help us build an authentic campaign that the brand can deliver on.

Digital advertising can help a brand target customers strategically.  For example, we were working with one of the nation’s largest parking companies and wanted to help them drive more customers in their NYC based parking garages. Considering the context of the delivery of our message we knew that customers were more concerned with convenience as opposed to budget and were willing to pay full price for a more seamless experience, we incorporated the geolocation app Waze into their mobile platform. The campaign resulted in driving more customers directly into their garages. By targeting local drivers by giving them an easier way to locate nearby garages, we helped improve customer traffic—no pun intended.

When it comes to advertising in the digital age, there are three key things CEOs need to know:

1. Integrate Your Marketing, Advertising and Sales.  These elements are linked closer than ever before.  Putting your marketing strategy in one place and centralizing efforts amplifies the effect. When media and creative are in the same shop, results are maximized.
2. Improve and Automate Customer Service. Many companies are trying to compete by selling the same things at about the same price, and the way we differentiate ourselves is service. Even if your offering is truly unique, you still need to deliver great customer service. One innovative way to deliver consistent customer service is through a chatbot, designed to create a controlled, positive customer experience.
3. Make Sure Ad Spend is Accountable. Three decades ago, it was hard to prove how many “views” your ad got, but in a digital age, so much of advertising is accountable—and companies shouldn’t settle for anything less. There are KPIs, or key performance indicators that we can measure, such as click-throughs, to tell if someone clicked and purchased.  We can see where web traffic is coming from, and going. That kind of accountability should be demanded by all clients.

Written by: Kevin Kelly, President of Bigbuzz Marketing Group.