Digital Marketing 101

November 5th, 2014

Why is digital

marketing

important?

Supports an integrated approach

Reinforces branding and differentiation

Expands reach to prospective customer base

Adapts to trends in user behaviour and preferences

Enables targeting and segmentation

Provides complete tracking and reporting transparency

Traditional (Offline)

Marketing

Digital Marketing

Print (newspaper,

magazine)

Direct Mail

Out-of-Home

(OOH) advertising

(billboards, etc.)

TV

Radio

Event

SEO

PPC

Media Buys

Email Marketing

Affiliate/Performance

Marketing

Social Media

Comparing traditional (offline) and digital marketing channels

The importance of a balanced digital marketing mix

On-Site Off-Site

Activities that make it

easier for search engines

and bots to find, index and

navigate a website

Should allow users to find a

website and what they’re

looking for once they get

there

User experience

Navigation

Activities that focus on

content development,

relationship building with

other webmasters and

content exposure

opportunities

Aim is to drive traffic to a

website

Content and distribution

should be about the human

experience

SEOSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) is the use of various techniques to improve a website’s ranking on search engines through organic means, ultimately to attract more visitors.

Pros:

Low cost

Permanence

Cross-channel impact

High customer values

Long standing return

Cons:

Requires continuous ongoing maintenance

Time consuming

Vulnerability to changes made in search engine algorithms

Can be the tactic that needs the most time to see results

Off-site SEO can require back-linking budget to secure exposure on high quality websites

PPC

Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising model, or online campaign, wherein a

website pays a set amount (bid price) whenever someone clicks on their ad.

Pros:

Speed

Reach

High customer values

Back-fills SEO vulnerability

Cons:

Temporary benefit

Can be very costly

Media Buys

Media buys in this context are the purchase of digital advertising space; traditionally,

media buying is the purchase of advertising space across newspaper, TV, billboard,

radio.

Pros:

Targeting

High volume traffic

Brand building

Cons:

Lack of transparency on media placement

Risk of low value traffic

Ad blocking

Email Marketing

Email marketing involves sending your affiliates a direct (via email), personalized

communication, with their specific needs in mind. Emails can be sent to owned or

outsourced (paid for) databases.

Pros:

Simple

Quick results

Low Cost

Cons:

Can be marked as SPAM which risks blacklisting if not properly operated; this can

have a negative impact on subscribe rates and the ability to use a database for

marketing in the future

Risk in working with third party databases

Pros:

Shares the risk and cost of acquiring

customers

Helps fill in gaps and blind spots

Offers access to large pools of, ideally,

relevant traffic

Creates “buzz” through impressions

Acts as a third party endorsement

Cons:

Long term tactic that requires time and

effort to grow results

Affiliate management requires ongoing

support

Requires the provision of transparency

to partners

Requires reliable tracking and reporting

Affiliate/Performance Marketing

Involves working with third party marketers (affiliates) on a

performance-based model for referred traffic.

Social Media

Involves using social networking websites/platforms

as a marketing tools with the goal of engaging

communicates and encouraging social sharing.

A look at social media consumption and user

trends…

Pros:

Provides global reach to 1 billion people +

Access to peer groups through social sharing and can result in referral marketing

Highly effective at communicating a brand story and creating a positive brand

experience

Contributes to improved customer retention and brand loyalty through increased

accessibility to a brand

Encourages user-generated content in engaging content mediums, and

contributes positively to SEO ranking

Social media consumption means you’re reaching users when and where they

choose to engage with content, and is very conducive to a mobile user experience

Improved customer insight through social “listening”

Cons:

Brand reputation vulnerability

Demands on time investment

A poor social media brand presence can impact more

negatively than none at all – there are arguably more

brands that do social media poorly than those who do it

well

How do

businesses

evaluate the

digital marketing

mix that is right

for them?

Digital trends to watch

A platform agnostic experience

Data, data, data!

Predictive and adaptive marketing

Native advertising

Real time marketing

Evolving ad formats

Shift to mobile as primary platform/device