The Future of Digital Media - Tire Review Magazine

The Future of Digital Media

Know where the digital marketplace is heading in order to create the ideal plan for your shop.

Here comes some digital media fun facts. I am going to fire them at you fast and furious in an effort to allow you walk away from this article a bit smarter, wiser and more focused on the digital space for 2013. If I had compiled this data myself, I would have the distinct right to call myself Wonder Woman, but in truth I derived much of it from BusinessInsider.com, an amazing resource for Internet intelligence led by Henry Blodget.

Digital Media Today
The digital medium is nearing 20 years old – yet I regularly am asked if this Internet thing is some kind of fad. This fact should put an end to the nay-sayers, wouldn’t you think?

Over 2 billion people are online – but that still leaves two-thirds of the world totally offline. Even with those figures, most of the world’s income is online, with statistics showing that the top 30% of global income earners make up 82% of the online users.

Smartphone sales blew past PC sales almost as soon as they were introduced in 2005. Today, tablet computers are driving all growth in the market, led by the release of the first iPad in 2010. Today, who would even consider buying a laptop over a tablet? And what exactly is a “desktop” anyway? No doubt that the future is mobile.

Online vs. Television
Viewing habits have swung away from primetime television toward time-shifted recorded shows, video games and streaming online video. Think about your family’s activities. Where do your kids and grandkids spend their time? I’m going to guess it’s heads down on mobile devices.

Satellite and cable TV subscriptions are trending down, while “over-the-top,” or OTT, video has become a player in the space. OTT includes third-party providers such as Netflix, YouTube and Hulu. Live events are increasingly garnering eyeballs, with the action being view­ed either on flat-screen televisions or through video gaming consoles (all of which are equipped with wi-fi). 

Digital media advertising is growing rapidly. In fact, at the largest U.S. tech and media companies, nearly 40% of the revenue is digital. Google now generates as much ad revenue as all newspapers and magazines combined.

Digital media content ad revenue is exploding with iTunes, Netflix and Kindle leading the pack, but keep your eye on Zynga, Spotify and Dropbox (if you haven’t the slightest clue about these companies, this is your cue to get Googling).

But even with that bright and shiny outlook for digital, TV remains far and away the leader in U.S. advertising spending and it continues to grow. However, user behavior is changing and history has taught us that when user behaviors change, the money follows.

Social Media
It seems the entire world is on Facebook (humans and pets include­d), yet the statistics show only one-seventh of the world’s population utilizes it, which translates to approximately 500 million daily users and 1 billion monthly users.

When it comes to online advertising, Google is the clear-cut leader, with Facebook blowing past Microsoft (Bing), AOL, Yahoo and all others combined for second place. The pace of Facebook’s growth makes one wonder if it will ever be bigger than Google. Highly unlikely, as Blodget puts it this way: “Google is like advertising at a store. Facebook is like advertising at a party.”

E-commerce
Big box stores aren’t just online to sell their wares; there is big business in ad sales. Target, Best Buy and Walmart are now building ad businesses; modeling their sites after Amazon with online ad revenue is already over $1 billion annually.

As e-commerce continues to take share, new brands such as Groupon, Gilt Groupe and Living Social blend marketing and commerce.

Mobile
When it comes to mobile phone usage, people are using their smartphones as they do their PCs and tablets, spending the majority of their time playing games, surfing social networks, catching up on the news, visiting the bank and shopping. It seems the vast majority of the human population is determined to burn up every spare second of their waking hours on their smartphones. Good for capitalism, but a bit scary for relationship building and social skill development – such as the all-important ability to make eye contact with your loved ones at the dinner table. But I digress.

I find one of the more interesting new behavioral habits is exhibited by those watching television while dialing into a social network on a smartphone. There’s something about this dual viewing activity that our brains crave and many find the ability to interact with others on mutual topics of interest quite satisfying – hence the draw of Twitter.

In-store price checking is a technical advancement that has changed the way we shop and ultimately make buying decisions. Today’s retail shopper is savvy, they care about getting the best price or a killer “deal,” and retailers need to understand this reality if they are going to survive in this ever-changing climate.

Price matching has become core to retail sales strategy, with same-day shipping being the latest game changer, as detailed by Wired magazine in “Death by a Billion Clicks,” about Best Buy’s fall from grace and plan for a comeback.

Mobile is driving Internet usage through the roof, creating a 24/7 data stream direct to the consumer. The question is whether mobile ad revenue will follow.

The space to watch is localized mobile ads, which allow retailers to reach their core demographic for the lowest of low spend. The ability to target consumers in the digital world is unlike anything before in the history of media, and savvy consumers hungry for local offers, deals and information are the real drivers.  

Apps
Apple’s App store downloads are on track to hit 60 billion by mid-2013, with smartphone users spending more time with apps than mobile web activity. “Freemium” is still the dominant model, with games being the area generating the most paid app downloads across the board.

Google Android is the leading mobile OS. This is attributed to the fact that Android is an open platform OS distributed through many phones including Motorola, HTC and Samsung. The Apple iOS platform runs only on the iPhone, iPad, iPod and iTouch, which limits growth potential.

Now that you are armed with a clear perspective on digital media, it’s up to you what you do with this newfound intel. My hope is you will review your marketing budget for 2013 and shift dollars to this growing frontier. This will allow you to start gathering data on what form of digital media delivers the highest ROI for your business.  

Heather Blessington, CEO of Duo Web Solutions, is an accomplished blogger receiving press from CNN, USA Today, BBC and Forbes. Her company specializes in creating and managing blogs for powersports dealers. Contact Heather at [email protected].

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