So, What’s the In-house Business Case for Digital Marketing?

First of all, digital performance dividends are highly correlated to first-mover advantages.  First movers who are strategic and consistent in their approach gain more traction/engagement faster and cheaper.  As the consumption of content on digital platforms inevitably expands, text-book economics kicks in and it becomes more expensive to achieve the same results as first-movers.   This is evident simply with Facebook.  In the ‘early days’ (pre 2012), gaining organic results in views and engagement by target audiences was easier and cheaper, if not free.  But in today’s context, there is such an incredible volume of content flowing through Facebook that investing strategically in viewer engagement and attention on Facebook is the new normal.  

Also consider the reports from Datareportal showcasing the uptake of social media platforms by PNG’s fundamentally young and expanding population (PNG data starts from slide 15).  It outlines that as of January 2019 the audience sizes which can be reached through advertising on Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram are 770k, 160k and 53k respectively.  Compare that with the reach, targeting and track-ability of the printed dailies.  This is not to negate the importance of the dailies – they play a role in communicating to the public. 

But… it’s important in considering the return on investment in light of where your target audience(s) consumes content.

Let’s also look at a few global trends:

According to Bloomberg and Google sources, 7 of the top 10 companies in the world are technology companies. 

The extrapolated table above, explores statistics indicating that from 2008 to 2018, the top company performers globally have steadily transitioned towards innovative and digtially-oriented organisations. 

Further, Visual Capitalist in 2016 showcased how the largest companies by market cap over 15 years were technology related and how this trend played out since 2001.
And finally, this McKinsey report also estimated that more than 30% of global economic activity could be mediated through digital platforms and yet only 3% of established companies have adopted an effective digital platform strategy.

The good news is that established companies still have the opportunity to create platforms of their own or leverage other digital platforms to their advantage.