Are we suffering from digital marketing blindness?

Pay per click was in its relative infancy, still being puzzled over, after Google’s AdWords product was introduced in 2000 and with Myspace not launched until mid-2003, the most social media got was slyly staring at a fellow commuter’s newspaper. In fact, a look at Google Trends searches shows the terms ‘social media’ and ‘social network’ barely registered pre-2008.

Link-building, social media management, PR as we know it today, native advertising, retargeting and content marketing were nowhere to be seen, as marketers stuck with what they knew, many convinced the traditional offline marketing tactics couldn’t be bested.

Today, we’re inundated.

Every minute spent online is another minute you’re treated as a potential user, customer or set of eyeballs for a marketer hoping to entrance you into their sales funnel. It’s endless but, much like sitting through three minutes of adverts every 15 minutes before we could so simply fast forward them, we put up with it. It’s become the norm to be treated both as a product and a potential purchaser of products – the reason being: if done properly, it can work well. We can measure digital marketing quickly and accurately in many cases. We can work out metrics such as the cost per user, as opposed to guessing as to the potential benefit of print advertising.

In all of this, it appears that many businesses are putting all their eggs into one or just a handful of marketing tactic baskets, with many forgetting about offline marketing entirely. And when you forget about offline marketing, or are forced by a boss desperate to be seen as Up To Date to concentrate solely on building a social following, you’re ignoring something incredibly important – offline marketing. More precisely, multi-sensory marketing.

Digital marketing is great, but only appeals to two of our five senses – visual and audial. By foregoing the chance to market to people in person alongside it, you’re missing an opportunity. Statistics show the truth of this: three quarters of people said they’d be more likely to buy a product they’d had a personal experience with – something you just can’t replicate online. In-person marketing plays a huge part in not just brand awareness, but brand engagement and recall. It makes sense (sorry) that by allowing the public to touch, taste and smell your product too, they’re sure to remember it more than a banner ad.

There’s a sensory marketing campaign example by Dunkin’ Donuts in South Korea worth noting. When a company jingle played on buses, a coffee scent was emitted. In Pavlovian style, this campaign is said to have increased visits to Dunkin’ Donuts outlets near bus stops by 16 per cent and sales at those outlets by 29 per cent.

The fact that ROI is more difficult to measure offline in direct comparison has already improved and will only continue to – with data capture, social sharing and more all now part and parcel of experiential and sensory campaigns.

There’s more to marketing life than yet-another boosted post and, if brands and agency marketers are looking a way to appeal to multiple senses to provide an experience that leads to a higher likelihood of customer purchasing intent, there are dozens of other tactics to consider.

Digital marketing used to be the Wild West – the preserve of early adopters and people learning as they went. Now, it’s the safe option. A whole generation of professionals have unthinkingly grown up in the industry with a digital-only mind-set. Isn’t it at least worth considering how else to reach an audience?

Andrew Pocock is sales and marketing director at Marler Haley, which has created ‘Sensory Marketing Cheatsheet’ for brand and agency marketers examining more than 40 marketing tactics.