Archives for posts with tag: Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing

April 5, 2019 //
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Digital marketing is one of those terms that has tended to confuse people over the last few years. It’s become very high profile of late, to the point where people believe that digital marketing is all of marketing, and all there is to do in marketing. That’s not the case though.

Sure, it’s an important part of the marketing mix, but to focus on it simply because all people seem to talk about these days is social media or mobile is short-sighted.

Digital marketing is really about electronic marketing, a form of marketing that is received through an electronic device, hence the term ‘digital’. More often than not this means online marketing, using the Internet as the medium, as in on-the-Internet marketing.

Under this banner we can put types of marketing like social media marketing, search engine optimisation marketing and pay-per-click marketing – like good Adwords – to name a few. Email marketing, a good bit older than my three examples, comes under this heading too, since we’re talking about the device through which you deliver and consume the marketing.

There are other forms of marketing that are digital but not necessarily online. These might be electronic billboards, on-screen demos and good old-fashioned telly. For more examples of digital marketing and a good definition of it, go here.

Digital marketing gets the headlines and its fair share of budget but it’s just one part of the marketing pie, alongside traditional marketing and hybrid forms of the P that is promotion. You’ve got events, non-electronic advertising, direct mail, public relations among others, and we haven’t even got to the other three P’s of the 4-legged P stool – which sounds a bit unappealing – namely product, price and place.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales

Extreme Retargeting

June 8, 2018 //
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Extreme retargeting

As someone who’s spent a lot of time in marketing, including digital marketing, I’m used to retargeting campaigns. Websites I’ve visited, having dropped cookies on my device, drop ads into other websites I visit via the display advertising and remarketing platforms.

If I’ve parted with my email address and I don’t complete the shopping or quotation process, I’m also used to the companies emailing me with a link to where I left off and enticing me to get to the finish line.

My free webmail account has recently starting dropping ads into my inbox, made to look like emails, but they’re ads all the same.

This one’s a new one to me though. I was recently researching campsites in France and to my knowledge did not part with my email address. Lo and behold, I get an ad from the campsite company in my webmail inbox, looking like an email, but advertising the exact same campsite I was on last, which I found a bit freaky. It’s extreme retargeting.

I’ve no idea how they’re doing this, but I think it’s rather cool. I may even book the site now I’ve been reminded. Others may find it a little too intrusive, until it too becomes the norm.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales

The Real Importance of Good Content

May 19, 2017 //
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In the B2B sales and marketing conversation it’s hard to imagine anything more important than content. It’s important to have lots of content, because then you can design more workflows to build the engagement and you’ve a larger base of material to recycle from. But the quality is more important than the quantity.

In the good old days, by which I mean the noughties, it was about attracting people and then working the leads.

That doesn’t cut it these days. It’s no longer about aiming solely for a form submission with some precious contact details because someone wants to download an ebook or register for a webinar. If the content is poor quality, you lose them and they won’t come back. Today’s best companies nurture their prospects with good content and score their leads according to fit and the degree of interaction. Good companies only pass leads onto sales when those leads have passed a certain score and demonstrated they are interested to a certain degree.

The good marketing companies – with good content that they trust – are not passing over a lead as soon as someone submits their details for the first time. This is why the content has to be good. If it’s poor, it’s probably the end of the relationship before it’s begun.

‘Let’s maximise our webinar registrations and then call them all in case they don’t attend. Also, the ebook is not quite what it’s built up to be, so let’s make sure we follow up with everyone who’s downloaded; we don’t want to lose them.’ Nope, you already have.

This is the real importance of good content. It’s not a hook to get them in and lock the door behind them. It’s an invitation to build something, and throughout the ensuing relationship you’re only as good as the last piece of content they got.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Technology

The Number 1 Rule for Your Website Home Page

September 22, 2014 //
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What’s the number one rule for the home page of your website? It’s a pretty obvious one, but you’d be surprised at how many websites fail when tested against it.

When you go to a website for the first time, you want to know one thing: What do you do?

In other words:

– who are you?

– what do you do?

– how will this benefit me or my company?

This should not be difficult for you to address, regardless of your business.

Put it in a prominent place on your home page – or your landing page for whatever demand generation exercise you’re doing – so people can form a quick opinion as to whether what you have can help them. Otherwise they’ll leave frustrated. Why else do you think people typically abandon a home page way more than 50% of the time?

Don’t forget that you know your company well; how could people not know what you do? But you haven’t seen the website for the first time in a long time…

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy, Technology