Leveraging Technology to Gain a Competitive Advantage

Currently, the advertising industry is undergoing a paradigm shift. Clients are demanding creative solutions for solving problems and attaining business objectives. Old traditional methods are giving way to modern tools that deliver results in a measurable format. Technology allows for savvy businesses to gain a competitive advantage by utilizing specialized tools that attract and engage consumers, eventually leading to more sales. And if that wasn’t enough, the costs of these tools are usually less than conventional methods of advertising. In order to leverage these technologies, organizations need to acquire the skill sets and expertise in-house or contract with an interactive agency well versed in the practical application of technology in the marketplace.

So what are these technologies? Many of them revolve around the biggest marketing innovation of them all, the website. It is hard to find a business today that does not have some form of web presence, usually in the form of a website existing under the company’s own domain name. The website serves as an essential communication tool between a business and its customers, vendors, and internal staff. The cost of developing and maintaining a website is significantly cheaper than printing full color brochures and catalogs of comparable material. But we all know that, what’s new?

Many of the interactive tools in practice today revolve around the website as the central hub of communication. For example, email marketing is a cost effective method for acquiring and retaining customers. Emails link directly to websites enabling consumers to almost instantaneously purchase products after learning about them. The costs of email marketing can be up to 90% less than the cost of a traditional direct mail campaign. Additionally, response rates for email range from 5%-15%, whereas traditional direct mail achieves only 1%-2%. This is a huge difference when you are talking about marketing to a database of 100,000 prospects. Take this newsletter for example. If we tried to deliver this in a printed format, it would cost us significantly more, and the added value of having a print format does not justify the costs. Email allows us to realize the benefits of using a newsletter as a communications tool. Businesses that utilize email will have a leg-up over their competitors that are still only using direct mail. Email will deliver more revenue with less expense. That is a true competitive advantage.

Another interactive tool delivering results is search marketing. Compare the psychology of a consumer viewing a print advertisement or a television commercial to reading and clicking on a search term. TV ads and print ads are intrusive, interrupting a user’s mission to consume content. However, with search, viewers are actively seeking out the information that is being advertised to them. They do not need to be convinced to act on clicking a search result. If it describes what they are looking for, they will click on the listing. And, with paid placement search marketing, you can actually control the cost of each lead coming to your site. With television and print advertising, you pay regardless if someone visits your website or not. You also pay for an estimate of how many people will even see your advertisement. Don’t get me wrong; there is a place for television and print. My point here is that companies utilizing interactive technologies within their marketing mix will achieve better results for less money than their competitors.

More tools exist such as CD-ROMs, DVDs, Blogs, Vlogs, RSS News Feeds, mobile technology, Podcasting and more. Making comparisons with all the options available is beyond the scope of this article. The main point to remember is that technology is enabling marketers to deploy an incredible amount of innovative campaigns utilizing a cornucopia of interactive tools- usually, at a fraction of the cost and with accurate measurable results unobtainable with traditional marketing methods. Leverage these tools to gain a competitive advantage before your competitors gain an advantage on you.