If your brand is not digital these days, what is it?

“I wonder what the ROI of bankrupt is?

And yet, if you have ever given a speech, a webinar, or a class on social media marketing, I can almost guarantee you have received this question: “But how do we measure the ROI of this stuff?”

Look, I’m a true-blue ROI guy.  Frankly, money is one of my favourite things.

I’m a measurement fanatic and a data geek.  But pull up a chair and let me give you a dose of reality here. If you don’t have a digital strategy, your business is going to die.

And by digital, I don’t mean “a website.” In the last two years, 68 per cent of the Fortune 100 companies had a year-over-year decline in their website page views. Why?  Because people are not looking for you on websites any more...”

MARK W SCHAEFER www.businessesgrow.com (July 12, 2012)

..................................................................

Mark Schaefer is making an important point in his recent blog entry, excerpted above.

He gives the example of Rand McNally, famed and long-standing maker of maps in the United States.

Is this company leading the charge towards digital, mobile maps? No. Its forays into the new world are muted at best.

The digital maps space has been claimed by others.

Think like a consumer owning a smartphone and/or tablet computer. When was the last time you consulted a printed atlas? You know, that big, heavy book where you have to search for a destination in the index, find the correct page, locate yourself using grid references, and keep turning pages as you travel?

Not recently? I didn’t think so. Once you’ve used a mobile mapping application, one that locates you instantly, places you in the middle of the page, and changes the map to suit you as you move —you’re never going back.

And THAT is the point.

Sure, it’s not easy to figure out how you’re going to make money from the new technologies; and certainly you won’t enjoy your old-world profit margins any more.