Westside DIGS | Digital Edition Online

10 DIGS.NET | 3.29.2019 Warren J Dow | Publisher wdow@Southbaydigs.com | 310.373.0142 T hat's what marketers do – pay for attention. And if you're Google, Facebook and Amazon, you're getting paid a lot. By the end of 2019, eMarketer expects companies to spend nearly $130 billion on digital ads, compared with about $110 billion on traditional ads. By 2021, digital ad spending will grow to $173 billion, while traditional media drops to $104.32 billion. By 2023, the research firm projects that digital advertising will capture more than two-thirds of all ad spending. Google and Facebook dominate the digital ad space with combined ad revenue that commands approximately 59% share of the market. And Amazon is coming on strong as the third largest digital ad player in the U.S. with projections to grow over 50% this year and capture nearly 9% of the digital ad market. It's crazy to think that, almost 7 out of every 10 digital ad dollars spent going to only three companies. They own the data, they set the rules, and we pay them more and more so they can only get bigger. Marketers – We Have A Problem As you know, the demand for consumer attention has never been greater and with more and more content and messaging out there, getting someone to actually pay attention is getting closer to impossible. According to a recent IDC white paper, each digitally connected person will have at least one data interaction every 18 seconds, or nearly 5,000 times per day by 2025. Here's the problem - ad messaging and attention spans are going in polar opposite directions. CONENT & MESSAGING Growing unabated with no end in sight ATTENTION SPANS Getting smaller and tuning out the incessant noise Yet today's marketers are in a hurry, they want immediate ROI, they take shortcuts, it's all about lead generation, direct response, calls to action, opt-in, data, automation, clicks, and impressions! In their haste for actionable attention, marketers often forget entirely about what's happening to the brand – the lasting impression their marketing leaves with consumers. "But who cares, I'm getting a million impressions per month and the leads are pouring in!" Messaging is becoming marginalized and product driven – because now you can target the right person with the right message at the right time. (Surely you have heard of this clever marketing jargon!) But nothing is "right" about this at all. A Zettabyte A Day Will Surely Keep Marketers Astray The unquenched thirst for consumer attention has necessitated a stormy cloud of data organization, storage, and distribution issues. And the world is literally drowning in content and data. According to the IDC report on the ever-growing data sphere, the collective sum of the world's data will grow from 33 zettabytes (ZB) in 2018 to 175ZB by 2025, at a staggering compound annual growth rate of 61 percent. What the hell is a zettabyte? It's a trillion gigabytes. Now multiply that by 175. Explained a different way by David Reinsel, senior vice president at IDC, "If one were able to store 175ZB onto Blu-ray discs, then you'd have a stack of discs that can get you to the moon 23 times. Even if you could download 175ZB on today's largest hard drive, it would take 12.5 billion drives." This should give you some context into the insanity of infinite data and content world we now live in. The supply is endless, but consumer attention is finite. Share Of Mind First and foremost, the battle for business growth does not take place on the internet, on social media sites, or on shelves in the grocery store. Rather, it takes place in the subconscious mind of prospective customers. If you want to grow your business, you must first grow your brand in positive ways in consumers' minds. Remember the marketing term mindshare? It's old school, but I like to think of it as the new school. The concept of mindshare is about capturing consumers' "share of mind". Mindshare is the consumers' perception of a particular brand – the awareness of your particular brand as compared to your competitors. Mindshare is difficult to measure but attaining it is priceless and an absolute must in today's cluttered digital marketing environment. While increasing market share is the ultimate goal of any business, building mindshare is how you achieve it. Mindshare leads to market share. How do you get mindshare? First, you need a brand. How do you create a brand? You need a story. But how do you get consumers to pay attention? You provide something that is of value to a particular audience in such a special and unique way that it's remarkable. It's worth talking and telling others about. It activates the network of associations in a positive and robust way so that the cycle spreads and repeats. Elevated by an abundance of positive accumulated associations, brands with mindshare rise to dominance – consumers choose them instinctively. Message For Mindshare, Not Lead Generation. Brands that dominate in their categories and continue to grow are consistently activated by a myriad of positive associations. Every brand has its own mini-network of associations that are made up of every memory "impression" that a customer has of a brand. These messages/ memories accumulate both positively and negatively to form a sort of neural science "connectome." Think of your brand as a tree planting its roots in customers' minds and subconscious. As the brand experiences growth, it adds more associations and more branches to hold them together. When the branches are firmly rooted in consumers' memories, the tree (brand) captures more "share of mind". Businesses should create universal brand messages that focus on building positive associations with consumers. The more similar and positive a brand's "root system" is, the more likely consumers will recall it – growing goodwill, brand equity, trust and ultimately market share. Invest In Your Brand Today's online ecosphere and digitally driven marketing is a cesspool and void of trust. Many marketing pundits will say that marketing your brand has no ROI – it's a waste of time and money. Come again? Brands are how you sort out the cesspool. If you want to do well in the long run, you have to build a brand. If you want your brand to be built to last, you need to invest and spend time and money marketing it. People connect and engage with brands. Your brand is long-term and about building longevity and a legacy. If the audience and message is relevant, positive and consistent, marketing your brand is always a good investment. If you need mindshare to gain market share, you need to continually take care and invest in your branding. Build Something Of Value And Think Small To Get Big Every brand, at any stage of the business life cycle, (start up, maturity or decline) has untapped growth potential. You don't need to conquer the world and get caught up in the mass market hysteria. When you're able to captivate and delight the smallest possible audience the bond you create is tractable. The good word spreads, and consumers keep coming back. I'm so enamored with this concept (thanks to marketing guru Seth Godin) that I named my company Micro Market Media. I truly believe that micro is the new macro. In closing, remember that every brand has hidden growth potential because its network of associations, connections and memories have endless ability to spread and keep growing. Until next time ~ Pay (for) Attention P U B L I S H E R ' S M U S E

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