Guerrilla thinking

1) DON’T LIE

Many marketing and advertising people lie.
Because they have been lying for many years. The lied for years to the audience in their tv spot promising benefits and things that their actual products could just not really give.

If you have a bit of history in the advertising market on your shoulder as we do, you’re surely familiar to sentences like: “we can’t say this in the ad” or “actually this product is the same as competitors but costs more”. But this is over.

Or at least brands and agencies can’t keep lying as they did so far. Not on the web.
The power of the web is immense. if you are unable to fulfill with a real benefit the expectations you rise while communicating your brand/product the web will eat you.

That’s why the first and most important rule for a successful digital strategy is to be honest. To be ethical and sell things for what they really are.
Accept discussions and advices to improve.
By doing so you will understand that in a web perspective, your product is under constant scrutiny: you don’t have to look good enough. You have to BE good enough. 

2) DON’T BE MULTICHANNEL IF THAT DOESN’T ADD VALUE TO THE STRATEGY

Having a campaign or a project that is multichannel is cool.
But having a crapy advertising that’s spamming users on their iPads, iPhones, macs, pcs,androids it’s not.
Every channel has its own rules (we will see them in another post) and purposes.
Develop an iPhone app that basically gives you information about a product that you can easily find browsing google on your phone it’s pointless.

An app should make the product somewhat interactive. As much as a digital signage should add more value to your being somewhere outdoor. 
Don’t be anxious.

Think about what you want to do with every channel and how that channel could/should add  value to your customer experience. If it does not don’t activate it and focus on those who do.

3)  RECONSIDER THE ROLE OF MEDIA

Your media strategist will tell you he thought of a very good clustered display campaign. He will tell you that you can be on a main news portal or in a niche website that fits perfectly to your product.

Don’t trust that monkey. Most of the times he doesn’t really know what he’s saying.
And you can tell it by his presentations: hundreds and hundreds of charts, a giant excel to tell you in the end that you must spend a lot of money to generate AWARENESS

Now, what’s awareness online anyways? If you spend a lot in display advertising people will certainly be aware that your exist. But as soon as you stop investing it won’t take long for them to forget. 

So ask yourself what you want to achieve. Is it short-term awareness or long-term relationship?  
Long-term awareness is not an option through digital advertising, unless you plan to keep investing money for a very long time.

But even if you did, there are 2 things to keep in mind:

a) The fact that people are aware that you exist doesn’t mean they have a connection to you. Awareness is good online if it calls to an action, if it involves you in some ways. 

b)  In the digital sphere Too much display-generated awareness also translates as SPAM. Think about it. You are reading your email  or browsing some websites and you keep on seeing the same message… pretty annoying, isn’t it?
When it comes to the web repetition might not just be good for your marketing.

FINAL CONSIDERATION

Follow these 3 rules and apply them to your digital strategies and you will not fail.
Though simple and understandable, they are too often forgotten by “web makers” because they are focused in getting the client to do more and more (and pay more and more). Don’t make that mistake.
A strategy is not a tactic. While the second is more immediate and apparently rewarding, the first takes time to show results but leads to better satisfaction for you and your clients.