Digital marketing today is evolving as fast as the technology that pushes it forward and the number of users using the internet. For perspective, total internet users has increased over 209% in just 10 years from 1.6 Billion users in 2009 to over 4.5 Billion in 2019 (Source).With all of this growth, we have to foster an enthusiasm for learning the newest technologies and techniques, but also stress testing these trends to understand what has become irrelevant and what is still producing optimal results. Are your current digital assets producing the results your business needs to grow, are you keeping up with the latest technologies, are your current systems, platforms and strategies a cost center or a profit center for your business?
At Ciphers, we like to view our techniques, strategies, and technologies as either cost centers, profit centers, or investments. In your digital marketing, if you were to audit your current marketing systems, what category would they fall under?
What is a Digital Profit Center, Investment, or a Cost Center?
A digital profit center is as intuitive as you probably imagined. It is a system, process, page, or website that is generating you profit at the end of the year, not the day, not the month, but the end of the year.
Example: Company X has a Facebook page that they generate content for throughout the month and they also run lead generation ads via Facebook. After a quick digital audit, they find the following results.
The top figures point to a general monthly audit, but it only tells us 1/12th of the story.
We have an example of a Facebook page that we would define as a Cost Center to the business; Unpredictable, End of Year Loss. Changes need to be made to the current marketing strategy and techniqes to define how to optiomize these digital platforms to create digital assets or investments.
This is an example of digital investment. The strategy is proving to show consistent growth, and increased growth. While operating at a small loss at the end of year, due to the consistency of growth we can forecast that next year will effectively start out with immediate positive ROI and be claimed as a profit center.
As we can see, carrying on from the prior year, we now have created a tangible digital asset and profit center for your business.
A digital strategy must be accompanied with the necessary technology stack, marketing strategies, tacking technologies, and technical operations to effectively create a digital profit center for your business. Ciphers is dedicated to providing to our clients full-stack digital marketing services that create profit centers for their businesses.