Key communications concepts for digital marketing
In terms of deploying campaigns, these are further benefits of digital communications:
● Accountability. Digital media are potentially more accountable through the use of measurement systems known collectively as web analytics. Google provides a free tool known as Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics) to enable its advertisers to test the value generated from its ads.
● Testing. Potentially, testing becomes more straightforward at a lower cost with the option to trial alternative creative executions, messaging or offers. Google offers another free tool the Website Optimiser to test alternative landing pages.
● Flexibility. Campaigns can be more flexible, with the capability to change copy or offers during a campaign. Alternative ads can be served within Google to evaluate which works best. Google AdWords also offers dayparting, where ads can be displayed at different times of the day.
● Micro-targeting. Alternative messages can be delivered for different audiences according to what they are searching for. Potentially a company can show a different advert in Google AdWords for each term searched on.
● Cost-control. Costs can be controlled for each group of search terms entered by customers through the search engine, managed collectively, and bids made can be increased or decreased with the aid of software. Key challenges of digital communications It is sometimes suggested by some suppliers of digital media that they are quick, cheap and easy to deploy. This is a great misconception since there are many challenges which need to be overcome when managing digital campaigns. Again referring to a Google AdWords campaign as an example, these include:
● Complexity. To enable the benefits we have mentioned above such as personalisation, testing and dynamic variation in ads through time time has to go into configuring the campaign although the search engines provide defaults to enable easy setup. This requires specialist expertise either in-house or at an agency to manage the campaign.
● Responding to competitors. Since competitors can also change their approach readily, more resource has to be used to monitor competitor activity. Automated tools known as bid management tools can assist with this they will automatically check amounts competitors are paying and then adjust them according to predefined rules.
● Responding to changes in technology and marketing platforms. Google and the other ad-serving companies innovate to offer better capabilities for their customers. This means that staff managing campaigns need training to keep up-to-date. Google offers ‘Adwords Qualified Professionals’ so that companies can be certain of a minimum skills level.
● Cost. Although costs can be readily controlled, in competitive categories the costs can be high, exceeding €10 per click.
● Attention. While online paid search ads are highly targeted and there is arguably little wastage, not everyone will view paid adverts, indeed there is a phenomenon known as ‘banner blindness’ where web users ignore online ads (see Chapter 9 for more details). Engaging with the audience with advertising is also a problem in social networks and other publisher sites, which can lead to a very low rate of people clicking on ads.
Key communications concepts for digital marketing communication
In this section, we introduce three key concepts which underpin digital communications across the digital media we have introduced in this blogger.
1 Customer engagement.
2 Permission marketing.
3 Content marketing.
1 Customer engagement
This difficulty in gaining attention online on all types of sites has led to the emergence of the concept of customer engagement as a key challenge with which digital marketers are increasingly concerned.
cScape (2008) describe customer engagement as:
repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand.
While for Haven (2007), customer engagement is:
the level of involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence an individual has with a brand over time. Arguably, the biggest difference in communications introduced by the growth of digital media and the web is the capability, or many would say necessity, to include customer’s’ conversations as an integral part of communications. Today, proactively managing consumer participation which occurs through social networks such as Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn, video postings and comments on YouTube and myriad blogs and forums is essential since, when a positive sentiment is expressed by a real person independent from a company this confers credibility on the company.
Equally, there are negative sentiments or comments made by consumers on the web that need to be managed. For example, on one site (www.haveyoursay.com) a purchaser of a car was highly critical about a make of car and the comments appeared near the top of the Google search results page when someone searched for the brand, yet for several years the manufacturer did nothing to manage this.
2 Permission marketing
Permission marketing is an established approach to online marketing which is still highly relevant today as a practical foundation for CRM and online customer engagement. ‘‘Permission marketing’ was a term coined by Seth Godin. Godin (1999) noted that while research used to show we were bombarded by 500 marketing messages a day, with the advent of the web and digital TV this has now increased to over 3000 a day! From an organisation’s viewpoint, this leads to a dilution in the effectiveness of the messages how can the communications of any one company stand out? From the customer’s viewpoint, time is seemingly in ever shorter supply; customers are losing patience and expect reward for their attention, time and information. Godin refers to the traditional approach as interruption marketing.
Permission
marketing is about seeking the customer’s permission before engaging them in a relationship and providing something in exchange.
The classic exchange is based on information or entertainment a B2B site can offer a free report in exchange for a customer sharing their email address or ‘Liking’ a brand, while a B2C site can offer a newsletter or access to their wall with valuable content and offers. We cover the principles of permission marketing in more detail and with examples related to CRM in this blogger.
3 Content marketing
Success in permission marketing requires exceptional, compelling content. To emphasise the importance of content marketing to gaining permission, encouraging sharing and ongoing engagement through websites and social media, the concepts of content marketing and content strategy have developed to describe best practice approaches.
Today, by content we refer to the combination of static content forming web pages, but also dynamic rich media content which encourages interaction. Videos, podcasts, user-generated content and interactive product selectors should also be considered as content which should be refined to engage issues.
You can see the challenge content strategy presents since today there are so many different types of content delivered in different forms to different places on different access platforms, yet it is increasingly important to engage customers in social media.
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