Balance is the key in using both in the most effective way. I am seeing marketing activities come full circle to the industry, whether it be among retailers or solution providers. I have also been “blinded by the light” of social media as the default answer when traditional media such as trade publications both in print and online can be a much more effective way to reach decision makers who have the “juice” to make something happen. Yes, use social, but only as one tactic among many.

Retailers seem to have been hesitant to shift ad spend to more personalized and relevant channels like loyalty and promotions around coupons, which have consistently shown to be more valuable to both retailers and consumers. This is cultural and not based on analytic data. Retailers MUST begin shifting some of their ad spend in areas that do not perform in order to remain “sticky” with their shoppers. It’s time to start being realistic and honest about traditional ad performance. Listen to your customers!

Digital marketing does not necessarily mean online. TV is digital, for example. That said, I think the biggest issue I see is a lack of strategy. Most advertising from brands is a hodgepodge of tactics, not a defined strategy. The CEO says, “we need to do online” and someone jumps and starts running display ads with a coupon.

Social media is totally misunderstood. I see brands and retailers pushing deals and specials constantly and failing at it. Social media is SOCIAL. It is an opportunity to engage with your consumers. It is a soft sell.

Online marketing is a totally different approach and most brands and retailers don’t understand it. They are so entrenched in the circular and discount mode that they do not understand how to properly use online strategies like native ads and content marketing to engage with their consumers.

It is not the marketing channel that is flawed. It is the tactic.

The “shotgun” approach of throwing money at all types of digital and hoping you’ll see some ROI is futile. Digital has some great leverage potential, however you need to determine the bang for the buck just like traditional methods of marketing. The trouble is, most marketers still struggle to show real ROI even with traditional methods. So digital tends to cloud the effectiveness of overall marketing efforts if it is not productively managed. Digital marketing tactics like real-time personalization, for instance, are driving huge results for retailers as we speak. The innovators are using ROI models that capture the relevant data to paint a next best action nurture stream campaign to make digital stronger the more data it collects over time. That’s machine learning. Cognitive. It’s working. And it’s truly the future.

Digital is like every other media — it works when tightly targeted and seldom pays back in the typical “spray and pray” approach. Digital is definitely the “shiny new object” — but a little bit of that is nomenclature (sort of like the way in-store demos have become “experiential marketing”) — digital can either be direct mail on a different device or it can be broadcast advertising. It’s all about using the right approach for the right purpose. And yes, John Wanamaker, half of our advertising dollars are still wasted — and we still don’t know which half.

Clearly “share of mind” of consumers and shoppers is higher in mobile and online media than in traditional media, and the gap grows with each new consumer generation. However, “share of spending” is still proportionally skewed towards traditional media. This is because of inertia, lack of ROI analysis and other “political” factors. When retailers and brands invest in digital channels, the effect of being “blinded by the light” is indeed noticeable. Many of these investments are hype-based without a real strategy behind them, based on choosing the easier/faster way which is not necessarily the effective one. Social media campaigns have their place within the marketing mix, but social media shouldn’t be the prime channel. Personalized coupons, customer-centric campaigns, relevant content through multiple channels, user-friendly UI on mobile apps, digital merchandising and many other digital-related channels must be considered and analyzed.

I think retailers need to figure out where their customers are — physically and digitally — and advertise accordingly. We are way past the days when one could seriously suggest there is a magic wand or secret formula out there that guarantees success. Retailers have to stop grabbing every bright and shiny thing that comes along. It takes research, facts and innovative strategies to create a successful ad program today — but it all starts by deepening your understanding of your target customer.

In the supermarket sector retailers are mixing the various forms of marketing, digital and traditional, to various degrees with larger retailers generally engaging in more of a variety. However, many retailers have been slow to come to the party in this sector so I don’t think they are embracing digital at the expense of traditional for the most part at this point. It is important to look forward and develop the right blend of marketing tools for the present AND for the future in order to remain relevant. In some cases this will generate solid ROI and in others it will be experimental.

Who are your consumers and shoppers? What is the goal of your marketing? Answer those questions and then figure out what media (broadcast, billboards, social media, sales promotion) work with your consumer touch points. Then design your marketing plan across all forms of media you plan to use AND metrics for assessing results. Otherwise you are still guessing which half of your promotion budget works.

When all is said and done, the big winner will be digital coupons. It will be generational. Everyone carries a smartphone.

Digital marketing seems to be more cost effective than traditional marketing. The cost of a mailing or a TV or radio commercial is much higher than the cost to capture someone on a social channel — or even email. How many people are on digital (commercial free) radio versus traditional radio? How many people really watch TV (other than sports and news) on a recorded device versus in real time? And, how many of those watching TV on the recorded device don’t speed through the commercials? I think you see where I’m going with this.

So, assuming your customers are listening to commercial free Sirius Radio and speeding through commercials of their favorite recorded TV shows, digital advertising seems to be a very viable option — if not the best option for some retailers.

One of the greatest benefits of digital marketing is the accountability. With the exception of social media, most digital marketing should be trackable. That does not mean that it is easy to track. The gap for most marketers is attribution modeling, which identifies the combination of actions that drive incremental sales. Detailed test plans (A/B and multivariate), combined with strong web metric tools, provide the tools that will permit marketers to better understand the impact of their digital marketing.