Identifying Digital Advertising Channels on a Challenger Budget

Challenger brands compete by outthinking, not outspending the competition. The same philosophy applies to your digital advertising strategy. You’ve got to find innovative ways of accomplishing your goals, and as a challenger, time and resources can be in short supply. That’s why it’s important to work with an agency that has digital specialists at the ready, like LOOMIS and my team at Fetch It.

Digital changes too fast for anyone to keep up unless they’re solely focused on the virtual terrain. When your digital specialists work in concert with your traditional agency folks, you’ve got the one-two punch to make your dollars work harder, keep your strategy in sync, and maybe even overtake the big guy in first place.

Challenge your creative. Pull out all the stops on your creative, and employ a challenger mindset that will get your ad noticed. Your creative assets must break the mold whether it’s with a surprising headline or an eye-catching graphic.

One of our biggest quick wins was an April Fool’s gag for Rug Doctor. It even made the list of Adweek’s April Fool’s Day Roundup of the Best Brand Hoaxes.

Go ahead, click the ad. You know you want to. No one’s looking. Well, except our analytics that showed this spot quadrupled our click-through rate over night. 

Be a good listener. Active social listening can present hundreds of opportunities every day to push out messaging to those who are receptive. We did exactly that for one of our large restaurant chain clients. When a user posted a message about being hungry, we replied with an offer.

Have impeccable timing. Consumer use of the second screen is on the rise with some estimates as high at 87 percent using a mobile device while watching TV. You can leverage TV sync to deploy mobile ads at the same time as what’s playing on the TV.

Make the most of location. Geo-fencing allows you to target a consumer based on their location as reported by their smartphone. For example, if a consumer is within a certain range from your store, you can send them a compelling offer.

Be at the right place at the right time. With blog aggregation, you can push your content out to news channels to reach your target in new and unexpected ways.

Digital continues to evolve to provide marketers with more data than ever before, which helps you maximize your budget by investing only in tactics guaranteed to reach your target.