Over the next few weeks Mike Rudd, head of digital marketing for Hutchison Media, will be giving his thoughts on how to utilize it best and what it really is and isn’t for business owners and companies of all shapes and sizes.

Enter Mike!

For traditional retail businesses the word digital makes the hair stand up on the back of the neck. It’s exciting yet also terrifying.

Well established companies who have grown through word of mouth, grassroots, and traditional advertising mediums like TV and Radio all of the sudden have a new, and growing, opportunity to utilize digital.

But what about digital? How do you do it? Is it all you should do? Does it really work?

This is a three part blog post, not a dissertation to receive a PHD in digital marketing from Yale so I’ll try stick with brevity.

Digital is a necessary addition to any traditional company’s advertising plan and should be at a minimum 30% of the overall budget.
Digital will not cure other business or operations woes within a company. But traditional advertising models like print or direct mail won’t do that either.
Digital can get leads to your door that you can track but it’s just like other advertising mediums in that there is a “subliminal” factor that can’t quite be measured. It can however be measured much better than TV or Print.
Do not buy banner ads. Don’t even accept free banners as “added value.” Would you accept my week old leftovers from the trash?
Look instead to Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram, Pandora, Podcasts, and experiential digital marketing opportunities like influencers to push forward with.
Don’t spend energy over analyzing it. It’s much more important to hone your sales process, curate your company story, and make an amazing culture.
Don’t measure effectiveness based on impressions or clicks. Use leads and overall revenue of a business year to year to see if it’s working.
Hold your other mediums to the same standards you apply to digital.

Thanks for reading and I’ll be back next week with part two which jumps into the social media marketing side of digital.

That’s a high-level summary! Do you have any questions? I’m here to answer them at Mike@HutchisonMedia.com.

We’ll even do a free audit of your existing advertising plan and give you our feedback. We actually work hand in hand with business owners and marketing directors, not in place of them.

Or, if you’re like so many people and just don’t fully understand the process we can explain it to you in a language you’ll understand.

Email Mike@HutchisonMedia.com or leave us a comment below.