Savvy Marketers Tap into Digital Marketing

08/08/2008

In the good old days of advertising around the Olympics, if you had deep pockets, it was just a matter of paying a fair amount to the International Olympic Committee, then market the heck out of it via television and print ads. No more.

Thanks to digital media, you have to work a lot harder -- and smarter. What exactly does this mean for marketers overall, and Internet marketers in particular? Getting and staying plugged into the various forms of online media – e.g., social networking sites like YouTube, popular blogs and even mobile devices like cell phones.

According to the article, Faster, higher, stronger and digital on USAToday.com, “The Beijing Games will be the first Olympics in which a chunk of viewers — up to 5% — will watch their Olympic coverage via personal computers or mobile phones . . . And those viewers are the coveted trendsetting ones marketers want to reach.”

Most of these media savvy viewers can best be reached via social media.

Emotional Connectivity plus Interactive Media Equals Marketing Gold

What accounts for this trend? Internet marketing experts tout the fact that the Olympics are filled with emotion -- heartbreaking losses and exhilarating wins. These types of stories resonate personally with viewers.

When viewers make an emotional connection with a story, they like to share it. And social media is all about sharing. Therefore, a story can receive thousands or even millions of viewers relatively quickly when compared to other media.

And, “Savvy marketers want to tap into that,” according to Donna Hoffman, co-director of the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing at the University of California-Riverside. She goes on to state that marketers who know how powerful social media is will divert large parts of their ad budgets from traditional advertising to online marketing because it is so popular.

When you consider that almost three quarters (73%) of Americans who have Internet service watched video online in May (Nielsen survey) and that over 150 Americans are projected to watch online videos overall this year, there’s no escaping the power of online and digital marketing.

For more insight visit Internet Marketing Services