Tallahassee Democrat tells community stories through advertising, too | Skip Foster

So, if you are a business owner and don’t know what addressable geofencing is, we need to talk. (A description of that is coming at the end, so hang in there with me, OK?).

The only thing changing faster than the news these days is digital marketing and advertising.

Things are certainly different from when I started in the business – print, TV, radio, billboards and direct mail were about the only games in town, advertising-wise.

Now, the list of digital marketing products alone stretches for miles – SEO, PPC, social media, targeted digital display, geofencing, programmatic, email, text, rich media and others, all of which can be targeted by geography, demography, behavior and more.

Here’s something you might not know – when it comes to digital marketing, we are really, really, really good at it.

I’m talking platinum-level solutions. It’s one place where being a part of a large company gives us advantage – access to all sorts of digital marketing expertise and cutting edge technology. Specifically, Gannett recently launched LocaliQ, an end-to-end digital marketing and advertising service for clients, small and large, with data-supported marketing strategies across web search, social media and mobile platforms

For example, one of the newest gadgets – addressable geofencing.

Part 1 of this column series:Our deadlines may have changed, but our commitment to keeping you informed is as strong as ever | Foster

First, here is a brief primer on regular geofencing.

Let’s say you own a jewelry store called “Diamonds are Forever” and you want to grow your business.

You determine you have three key competitors, so you decide to “geofence” them. This means, you hire us and we draw a virtual fence around their actual buildings. When someone enters their store with their phone, we capture device IDs and then start serving them Diamonds are Forever ads – wherever they go online – for 30 days. So, they are at home on the couch the next day and go to cnn.com or espn.com or wherever — and there are “Diamonds are Forever” ads. In addition to competitors, we could geofence places where jewelry buyers might frequent (flower stores, high end clothing stores, etc.).

Some people argue this is a little creepy for users, but the reality is that folks prefer to be served ads for items/services of interest.

Addressable geofencing takes this to the house-by-house level – a digital alternative to direct mail. “Lists” are the key to direct mail campaigns; they allow businesses to target households of people with certain interests, incomes, political party affiliations, etc.

Addressable geofencing allows each house to be geofenced – thousands and thousands of individual “fences” with ads then following around residents as they travel online.

For all types of geofencing, the “conversion zone” is where a true return on investment is realized. Back to the jewelry store example, when a shopper “fenced” at a competitor walks through the doors of Diamonds are Forever, that is tracked, so the business knows how many hard leads were generated.

Pretty nifty, eh?

So how do you know if you are truly getting top-notch digital marketing service?

Here a few key questions to ask your digital marketing provider:

• Are you a Google Premier Partner? Not just a Google Partner, a PREMIER partner. There are very few of these – we are one of them and it means that we have all sorts of capabilities to run your pay per click Google campaign more efficiently and create more leads for your business.
• Are you a Facebook Partner with special access to Facebook’s technology and upgrades?
• Are you willing to put together a proposal with a clear return on investment and help measure those results on an ongoing basis?

And, a question to ask yourself: Are you getting face-to-face reporting meetings to talk about not just what is working, but what isn’t working?

If you can't get answers of “yes” to all four, you need to call me at 850 599-2126 and let’s talk.

Here’s how this SHOULD work.

We worked with a local restaurant owner who also offers catering. The owner decided to go with our digital marketing plan and all but suspended all others types of advertising so he could see if what we did was working.

Uh … can you say, 30 percent increase in sales?

Obviously this is a strong testament to our digital marketing prowess. But what I really love is that we are in the results business, not the marketing business. This is not about “support your local newspaper” (you can do THAT with a subscription). This is about getting results. Generating leads. Driving revenue.

Marketing should be an investment with a return, not just something you do because everybody else is doing it. And it’s also helping our community grow. When businesses succeed, they hire more people and invest more in the community.

It’s gratifying for one more reason. You remember all those journalists I was talking about yesterday? If we are successful at growing our digital marketing business, it will help us keep those folks shining the disinfecting light of journalism on our community.

Journalism and advertising are the bedrocks of our business. I know every member of our team wishes we still printed here and had customers service operations based here and such.

But we can only control what we can control.

Amazing journalism and fantastic advertising solutions are still going strong and will be for years to come.

Thanks for your support..

Skip Foster is the president and publisher of the Tallahassee Democrat.