Editor’s Note: This blog was actually delivered in spoken word, standing up in a burst of passionate energy. We who witnessed it live did our best to capture every word. Below is our best possible recollection and transcription.
Many marketers will tell you this is their favorite time of year. Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with the changing fall foliage, Halloween, the World Series or even the “pumpkin spice-ization” of our entire food supply.
No, this is media planning season. That time when we evaluate what we learned this year, propose new, innovative ideas to our clients, and look to next year with a fresh set of eyes and empty rows on the budget spreadsheet.
Basically, it’s every marketer’s chance to show their chops and solidify relationships by delivering on their clients’ marketing goals whether that be brand lift, lead generation, ROAS improvement or any other metric.
It’s the time of year when we stretch ourselves and activate the skills that make our chosen career fulfilling…the chance to be creative, to uncover business insights through careful data analysis and to hopefully receive positive recognition from our clients and peers.
Indeed, a chance to realize that dream originally articulated at the post-finals keg party senior year when your med-school bound roommate asked what you were doing post-graduation and you proclaimed, “I dunno exactly, advertising seems like it might be fun, man”.
Seriously though, a tremendous amount of work, research and detailed analysis goes into annual media planning. Diligent account teams work long hours making endless revisions to ensure the completed annual budget represents the best possible allocation of every client dollar.
With that in mind, we wanted to offer this one suggestion that we think will take your 2023 Media Plan to the next level:
Be sure to Include a line item on your budget for Digital Business Information (DBI)
What is DBI?
We coined the phrase Digital Business Information earlier this year. As a reminder, DBI refers to the combination of all non-proprietary online information and data, related to a specific business or location.
Every business has literally hundreds of online profiles that appear across the vast digital/mobile landscape of search engines, social media platforms, online directories, navigation/map apps, review sites, virtual assistants and more.
Housed in these profiles is all the relevant information about every location in your company including name, address, phone number, URL, hours of operation, products/services, payment options, languages spoken, photos, videos and much more.
The reach of your DBI is massive and shows up everywhere customers and prospects are looking for you. This includes everything from your Google Business Profile, to your pin in Apple Maps, to your Yelp reviews to your listing on Bing.
Unfortunately, left unattended the accuracy of your DBI will be nonexistent or degrade as various sites make changes and update their databases. This leads to incorrect information about your company being published and to frustrating, unconstructive user experiences.
Taking control of your DBI by fully building out accurate, complete content and publishing it across the web has exponential benefits to your business. Below, we share some of the reasons we think it is so important.
Top 4 reasons why I need DBI on my annual media plan:
1. Increased Traffic – A core component of DBI is deployment of Listing Management software to syndicate the information across the ecosystem of search engines, social media platforms, online directories, map/nav sites etc.
For businesses launching new DBI campaigns, this instantly generates new profiles on a large number of sites where they never had representation.
The thing is for most companies, consumers initially engage with a business on sites other than on the company’s actual website. So, this greatly expanded reach delivers increased web traffic volume. Most of our clients feel the impact immediately.
2. DBI Is A Top Performing Media Channel – True, you may not be placing media in the traditional sense of spots or ads. Instead you are syndicating DBI that will appear across multiple web platforms. Still, the activity is all trackable and we are vigilant about setting up results tracking for our clients that measures traffic, phone calls, form fills etc. Invariably, when compared to other media channels, DBI is a top tier performer in terms of ROI/ROAS.
3. Two-fer SEO Benefits – DBI provides a two-fold lift to your search results. First, by fully populating your DBI with all possible information about your business (including languages, delivery options, unique services, videos, etc) you significantly increase your chances of being found in long-tail and near-me searches.
Second, online listing accuracy and consistency is an important ranking factor for Google. These are sometimes referred to as citations and will help your company rank higher in relevant searches.
4. Leaky Buckets – As mentioned above, unattended DBI can get out of synch causing data inconsistencies and inaccuracies. Customers can land on sites with incorrect information, become frustrated and ultimately never engage with your company. Imagine the cumulative impact of prospects and customers finding incorrect phone numbers, addresses, URLs, hours, map pins, etc.
Be sure to Include a line item on your budget for Digital Business Information (DBI)
The marketing universe continues to become increasingly data centric. So, it seems obvious that validating, activating and distributing your company’s digital business information would be a no brainer as it is certain to appear in all corners of the web.
Yet, it is still often overlooked. This is why we strongly recommend marketers include it in the annual budget. The good news is it doesn’t have to be a large number, but we are confident it will drive an outsized return!
Questions on how to integrate Digital Business Information into your media plan? Contact us here.