Friday, November 16, 2012

Bleep! The Spending Noise of Today




When we travel on the Tube we present our Oyster card and the fare is automatically calculated and deducted from our pre paid credit and we are given entry, or are able to leave the station. Sometimes you can see the amount deducted, but when there is a queue moving behind you, or when the display is badly light, or merely old, we often blindly trust the fare is correct and move on.

Yesterday's cash registers used to go 'CaaChing' now the machine merely goes Bleep!

Today’s digital market is full of innovative services all aimed at promoting you and your company and brand to the top of the charts. Google ad words, Search Optimisation and many more services are aimed at getting the product in front of the people. Are they the right people and do the hits convert to sales and money is secondary. Being able to relate money in to sales achieved has long been an art form mastered by Marketeers, but today we all are increasingly restricted to hearing ‘Bleep’ and knowing that some money has been taken.

Some time ago there was a study into consumer buying habits that was aimed at establishing whether there was a difference in the spending habits between cash and credit consumers. The research found that those with credit spent around 20% more than those who were just using cash. After all, it is easy to spend when all you hear is Bleep!

So is this new ‘blind trust’ just restricted to online marketing and credit card spending?

As we increasingly all become social network publishers and that includes all business too, what is the cost of visibility? What is the cost of indirect and direct marketing? What is the cost of list management? How do we measure success in a world where there are multiple sale points and subliminal advertising is everywhere?
Perhaps Bleep is all we hear and it’s only after a quick direct debit from our account that we see the cost of doing digital marketing today.

Bleep!

No comments: