Using digital media channels to support business objectives

Using digital media channels to support business objectives

Before we explain the different digital media channels, it is important to consider how they can support business goals. is a practical framework developed by Smart to help marketers manage and improve the commercial value that their organisations gain from digital marketing. RACE is an evolution of the REAN (Reach–Engage–Activate–Nurture) framework originally developed by Xavier Blanc and popularised by Steve Jackson in his book Cult of Analytics.

It is intended to help create a simplified approach to reviewing the performance of online marketing and taking actions to improve its effectiveness. The measures introduced are covered in more  where we explore the power of using web analytics for improving marketing performance.

RACE consists of four steps designed to help engage prospects, customers and fans with brands throughout the customer lifecycle

● Step 1: Reach – Build awareness of a brand, its products and services on other sites and in offline media and build traffic by driving visits to web and social media presences.

● Step 2: Interact – Engage audience with brand on its website or other online presence to encourage them to act or interact with a company or other customers.

● Step 3: Convert – Achieve conversion to generate leads or sales on web presences and offline.

● Step 4: Engage – Build customer relationships through time to achieve retention goals. 

Digital channels always work best when they are integrated with other channels, so where appropriate digital channels should be combined with the traditional offline media and channels. 

The most important aspects of integration are, first, using traditional media to raise awareness of the value of the online presences at the Reach and Interact stages and, second, at the ‘Convert’ and ‘Engage’ steps where customers may prefer to interact with customer representatives.

The key types of digital media channels

There are many online communications tools which marketers must review as part of their digital communications strategy or as part of planning an online marketing campaign.

Online marketing tools are divided into the six main groups we review these tools in detail, but this is the essence of each digital media channel:

1 Search engine marketing. Placing messages on a search engine to encourage click through to a website when the user types a specific keyword phrase. Two key search marketing techniques are paid placements or sponsored links using pay-per-click.

placements in the natural or organic listings using search engine optimisation where no charge is made for clicks from the search engine.

2 Online PR. Maximising favourable mentions of your company, brands, products or websites on third-party websites such as social networks, blogs, podcasts or feeds that are likely to be visited by your target audience.

Also includes responding to negative mentions and conducting public relations via a site through a social media news centre or blog, for example.

3 Online partnerships. Creating and managing long-term arrangements to promote your online services on third-party websites or through email communications. Different forms of partnership include link building, affiliate marketing, aggregators such as price comparison sites like Moneysupermarket (www.moneysupermarket.com), online sponsorship and co-branding.

4 Display advertising. Use of online ads such as banners and rich media ads to achieve brand awareness and encourage click-through to a target site.

5 Opt-in email marketing. Renting email lists or placing ads in third-party e-newsletters or the use of an in-house list for customer activation and retention.

6 Social media marketing. Companies participate and advertise within social networks and communities to reach and engage their audience.

Viral marketing or online word-of-mouth messages are closely related to this. Here content is shared or messages are forwarded to help achieve awareness and, in some cases, drive response.

Social media marketing is an important category of digital marketing which involves encouraging customer communications on a company’s own site, or social presences such as Facebook or Twitter or in specialist publisher sites, blogs and forums. 

It can be applied Social networkA site that facilitates peer-to-peer communication within a group or between individuals through providing facilities to develop user-generated content (UGC) and to exchange messages and comments between different users.

Blog Personal online diary, journal or news source compiled by one person, an internal team or external guest authors. 

Postings are usually in different categories. 

Typically comments can be added to each blog posting to help create interactivity and feedback.

Podcast Individuals and organisations post online media (audio and video) which can be viewed in the appropriate players (including the iPod which first sparked the growth in this technique).The latest podcast updates can be automatically delivered by RSS.

Feed (or RSS feed) Blog, news or other content is published by an XML standard and syndicated for other sites or read by users in RSS reader services such as Google Reader, personalised home pages or email systems. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

Viral marketing message

Viral marketing message is communicated from one person to another, facilitated by different media, such as Word of mouth, email or websites, in particular social network or blogsites.Viral marketing implies rapid transmission of messages is intended.

Website and social presences Online communications

1 Online PR

• Publisher outreach

• Community participation

• Media alerting

• Brand protection

2 Search marketing

• Search engine

optimisation (SEO)

• Paid search

 Pay-per-click (PPC)

• Paid for inclusion feeds

Online communications

1 Advertising

2 Personal selling

3 Sales promotion

4 PR

5 Sponsorship

3 Online partnership

• Aliate marketing

• Sponsorship

• Co-branding

• Link-building

5 Opt-in e-mail

• House list e-mails

• Cold (rented list)

• Co-branded

• Ads in third party

e-newsletters

4 Interactive ads

• Site-specific media buys

• Ad networks

• Contra-deals

• Sponsorship

• Behavioural targeting

6 Social media marketing

• Audience participation

• Managing social presence

• Viral campaigns

• Customer feedback.