By Lucy Benton
A lot of consultancy firms, digital marketing firms and online advertising firms bang on about simplicity in advertising, but when you push them on the subject they start blurting out buzzwords. There is a method to simplicity in digital marketing, and there are a few good reasons why you should consider it. That is not to say that overly complex marketing strategies will not work, but in many cases they take a lot more planning and implementation than most firms can afford. Here’s how to execute digital marketing simplicity successfully.
You create a small pocket of information.
If you keep your digital marketing simple then you can create little pockets of information that will hopefully compel the viewer to buy. At the very least, it will encourage them to look at your landing page and website. A small pocket of information is something that gets a point across very quickly, with a benefit embedded into it. Receiving a horse-betting tip is similar to a pocket of information. You are told the horse and the time of the race. The benefit is that you will win money, and you already know where to place a bet. A pocket of information is a similar thing, because that also contains information with a benefit embedded, and the person receiving it already knows the rest.
A simple digital marketing pocket of information may be a comment on a blog comment section. The blog may be about a mobile phone, so the comment would go something like, “You can hand over your own phone for a discount on the new one at XXXX”. The message is simple, the benefit is apparent, and the place where it may be done is also given in the message. With just one line, you have sold a product, or at least given the reader an incentive to do a little research themselves.
You need to be quick in the online world.
People who use the Internet are forced to skim read everything they see. There is so much irrelevant information and advertising on the Internet, that people are not able to read every line of every page. They have to skim across a page to see if anything is of use, before moving on to try a new page.
This means that your digital marketing also has to be quick and inherently simple. You cannot afford to create a hook, a lead in, an incentive to read on, selling points and a clincher, because before the person has gotten past the first line they have already lost interest. A simple marketing message will give the reader an incentive to do their own research and look you up. You may lose a lot of custom if your message does not engage the reader, but the same is true for if you wrote very long and structured adverts.
A simple digital marketing message is easy to read.
The more complex that your marketing message is, the more likely it is to be ignored. This is not because people are dumb. It is because people simply do not have the motivation to become invested in what you are saying or trying to get across to them. Your marketing message should be very easy to read, and a simplistic digital marketing message is going to be easy to read. Once you have ensnared the reader and have got them onto your website, then you can become a little more sophisticated with your marketing. At that point the reader is motivated enough to engage with your more complex marketing. At this point, if you were to continue being simplistic, then the reader may lose respect or trust for you.
Simplicity with digital marketing is also easier to host.
Let us say that your marketing message is nothing more than a panel advert. This is going to be small and easy to load. It will not take half a minute to appear on a page, and a person will not have to wait for it to upload if they wish to share it. A large image that looks like a two-page ad in a magazine may have a lot of marketing value, but if the page is white as the reader waits for it to load, then you risk losing them all together.
