The characteristics of digital media
By understanding the key interactive communications characteristics enabled through digtal media we can exploit these media while guarding against their weaknesses.In this section, we will describe eight key changes in the media characteristics between traditional and digital media. They provide an alternative framework that is useful for evaluating the differences between traditional media and new media.
1 From push to pull
Traditional media such as print, TV and radio are push media one way streets where information is mainly unidirectional, from company to customer, unless direct response elements are built in. In contrast, many digital marketing activities like content, search and social media marketing involve pull media and inbound marketing . Among marketing professionals this powerful new approach to marketing is now commonly known as inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing is powerful since advertising wastage is reduced. It involves applying content and search marketing to target prospects with a defined need they are proactive and self selecting.
But this is a weakness since marketers may have less control than in traditional communications where the message is pushed out to a defined audience and can help generate awareness and demand. Advocates of inbound marketing argue that content, social media and search marketing do have a role to play in generating demand. The implications are that stimuli to encourage online interactions are still important through online or traditional ads, direct mail, physical reminders or encouraging word-of-mouth.
Push from email marketing remains important and is part of the inbound or permission marketing approach :
It should be an aim of websites and social media presences to capture customers’ email addresses in order that opt-in email can be used to push relevant and timely messages to customers.
2 From monologue to dialogue to trialogue
Creating a dialogue through interactivity is the next important feature of the web and digital media which provide the opportunity for two-way interaction with the customer.
This is a key distinguishing feature of the medium according to Peters (1998), and Deighton (1996) proclaimed the interactive benefits of the Internet as a means of developing long-term relationships with customers through what would later be defined as permission marketing by Godin (1999).
Walmsley (2007) believes that the main impact of digital media has not been to find new ways to connect brands to consumers as originally anticipated, but in connecting those consumers to each other. In the age of trialogue; brands need to reinterpret themselves as facilitators. Walmsley believes this trialogue will influence every aspect of marketing, from product design through to product recommendation. An example where product design is influenced is Threadless.com, the online T-shirt store, which only carries designs its users have uploaded, and manufactures only those that get a critical mass.
3 From one-to-many to one-to-some and one-to-one
Traditional push communications are one-to-many, from one company to many customers, often the same message to different segments and often poorly targeted. With digital media ‘one-to-some’ reaching a niche or micro-segment becomes more practical e-marketers can afford to tailor and target their message to different segments through providing different site content or email for different audiences through mass customisation and personalisation.
illustrates the opportunities for mass customisation as interaction occurs between an organisation (O) communicating a message (M) to customers (C) for a single step flow of communication. It is apparent that for traditional mass marketing in (a) a single message
Hoffman and Novak (1997) believed that this change was significant enough to represent a new model for marketing, or a new ‘marketing paradigm. They suggest that the facilities of the Internet, including the web, represent a computer-mediated environment in which the interactions are not between the sender and receiver of informationbut with the medium itself. Their vision of the future is now apparent in the popularity of social networks, blogs and specialist communities.
consumers can interact with the medium, firms can provide content to the medium, and in the most radical departure from traditional marketing environments, consumers can provide commercially-orientated content to the media.
4 From one-to-many to many-to-many communications
Digital media also enable many-to-many communications. Hoffman and Novak (1996) noted
that new media are many-to-many media. Here customers can interact with other customers via a website, in independent communities or on their personal websites and blogs. We will see in the section on online PR that the implications of many-to-many communications.
loss of control of communications requiring monitoring of information sources, but it opens more opportunities to reach out to influencers to expand reach.
5 From lean back to lean forward
Digital media are also intense media they are interactive, lean-forward media where the customer wants to be in control and wants to experience flow and responsiveness to their needs. First impressions and devices to encourage the visitor to interact are important. If the visitor to your site does not find what they are looking for immediately, whether through poor design or slow speed, they will move on, probably never to return.
6 The medium changes the nature of standard marketing
communications tools such as advertising In addition to offering the opportunity for one-to-one marketing, the Internet can be, and widely still is, used for one-to-many advertising.
The website or social media site can be considered as similar in function to an advertisement (since it can inform, persuade and remind customers about the offering, although it is not paid for in the same way as a traditional advertisement. (1996) consider a website as a mix between advertising and direct selling since it can also be used to engage the visitor in a dialogue.
Constraints on advertising in traditional mass media, such as paying for time or space, become less important. The wastage in traditional advertising where ads are either ignored or are not relevant for an audience is reduced in online marketing and search marketing in particular. In pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, display of ads can be controlled according to user need based on what searchers are looking.
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