Dear Digital,
It’s been a good run. We’ve had some really good times. Somewhere along the way, we got lost. Got caught up in our own hype. We certainly didn’t do us any favors by saying we can measure everything. At times we even ignored the fundamentals of marketing. Mistook tactics for strategy.
It’s not you digital, it’s me.
You know, a colleague often quotes Dr. Angelou, “When you know better, you do better”. Indeed we do…I am a reformed “digital” marketer. Mind you, one that has evolved MILO from a social media agency to a digital agency to finally, thankfully, an Agency.
We admit, we were guilty of approaching client problems through only a social, or a digital lens. What’s the problem with that? Well, it’s in conflict with our beliefs. With what we know. We can’t manage your social channels without understanding your business. Really. Do we truly understand your business goals? Live it, know it and care about it like you do? Or did we just figure out best practices and a list of tactics to post quote graphics and pretty pictures with hashtags? Did we prop ourself up by propping those up with boosted posts and wrap it up with a bow and call it engagement?
Have I grown your business? Moved the needle in a meaningful way?
Look, there is a reason that Instagram is seriously considering getting rid of “likes”. A “like” is a vanity metric. A “like” has never increased your bottom line. Let’s talk about the people we are trying to reach. The same way we’re trying to reach you. To convince you, that, yes, MILO is the right agency to help you meet your business goals.
We had to step outside of our jaded view on digital and think about YOUR motivation. YOUR why. YOUR needs. Not my need to generate leads.
Stop selling me what you want to sell and start telling me what I need to hear to buy. This now legendary quote is something we hear almost daily at MILO. There is truth to it. Get out of your own way and make room for the customer. Their entire journey. What motivates them. Their path to you is not linear. It doesn’t sit in silos of digital or traditional or social or inserts. They don’t delineate where they see your message. It is their truth at any given moment. Not yours.
Best practices are best practices – who do we want to reach – what does our audience look like, what motivates them, what is the universal insight to drive our messaging? Everyone wants to say their channel is the best. There are constant battles for limited ad dollars. Channels fight to prove that they are the reason for conversion.
It must all work together. Digital marketing, traditional marketing…
Hey! Let’s just call it marketing.
Marketing is at its best when it’s integrated. Don’t optimize each channel in isolation, instead use all of the options available, building on each other and working together to deliver your message to your audiences based on their behavior and their motivation. MILO does not plan and buy channels. We plan and buy based on behavior.
Our goal is one to one marketing at scale.
Integrated means understanding, planning and managing all of it. From email marketing to display, social, video, outdoor, print and even, wait for it, in some cases printed inserts. Integrate your marketing based on your business objectives. Use every single channel that answers your strategy to make your media dollars more efficient and the plan more effective. This is ALL about fishing where the fish are – focusing on message delivery rather than channel planning. This is how we do INTEGRATED MARKETING — WITH PURPOSE
You’ll learn a lot today. Put it to good use. Don’t let it live in a walled garden without consideration to your larger business objective.
And never forget the real reason we do what we do.
“The purpose of advertising is to sell. That is what the client is paying for and if that goal does not permeate every idea you get, every word you write, every picture you take, you are a phony and you ought to get out of the business.”
Bill Bernbach (1911 – 1982)
With much love,
MILO
