A simple guide to the new world of Digital Marketing

In the old world, we relied upon mass media marketing, communicating a unique selling proposition to the whole audience together. Over the last 20 years, direct marketing, CRM and data analytics have enabled us to communicate in a more personal manner. However, these channels lack the interaction and engagement that the new digital world offers.

At the same time, consumer behaviour is changing. People want to participate, collaborate, share and engage with your content. They want to take it and re-use it, they want to ask you questions, rate your ideas or even submit their own. They want it in a flexible, portable format and they want to hear it from people they trust.

This means that brands don’t have the control and authority that they once had. Who would you trust when you book a hotel – the Hilton official site or someone posting on Trip Advisor (a site that allows people who have actually stayed in the hotel to give their honest appraisal of what it is like)? Would you be more likely to look at a video or web site that a friend has recommended or one that you see advertised in a banner ad or in an email from that brand? Who would you buy from on eBay – a seller who has over 200 complimentary reviews or someone who has never sold anything before? If people don’t like what you are doing, they will tell you. Even worse, if you don’t provide them a channel to do this, they will tell others in forums and community sites.

So, what is the impact for brands?

- You need to create opportunities for people to engage with you
- You need to stop broadcasting at them
- You need to provide opportunities for collaboration, discussion and review
- You need to be honest and open about who you are and why you are doing what you are doing
- You need to engage in the discussion, wherever it is happening, find out who is influential and start to positively influence them
- The old marketing rules still apply, but they have to be modified

How to engage with your customers

I have developed a 4 stage brand engagement model that you can use to help you measure and manage customer relationships. The 4 stages are Acquire, Participate, Engage & Share. At each stage, there are key steps that you need to take and lessons that can be learned. Participate is the key stage. Your marketing is probably focused around acquire right now i.e. getting people to respond and opt in, but trust me, the key challenge tends to be getting those people who have signed up to start participating and engaging with you. Your end goal is to identify a group of loyal super customers, who will become your advocates. These are the people who will spread your message in the forums, send on your viral video or host an event in partnership with you.

The importance of Search

All of your efforts are wasted if people can’t find you. Getting a higher search ranking on Google and the like is an art. It is not always the brand that pays the most that gets to the top. Don’t forget most web sites that achieve decent natural search positions get the majority of their traffic from natural not paid search and there are some key steps that you can take to improve both natural and paid search rankings. It is also crucial to constantly monitor your search performance – which words, with which creative and which parts of your site do those words take you to. Consumers don’t want to go to your home page and then hunt for the content they need – they expect to go straight to it. And don’t forget, YouTube, Technorati, iTunes and the like are just search engines that specialise in different media types.

Digital Channels

I tend to break down the digital channels into the more tactical direct ones (email, viral, mobile, podcasts, Instant Messenger) and community formats (forums, blogs, bloggers, communities, user groups). Different channels work better at different stages of the 4 step Brand Engagement model. Viral is great for getting advocates to share your content with new customers that you are looking to acquire, podcasts are great at the participate and engagement stages where you are trying to convert interested prospects into customers, or trying to deepen your relationship with existing customers. They are great for thought leadership too. Some channels work best when your timing is driven by your internal needs (a product launch or event for example), but the best marketing comes when you are responding to a change in a customer’s needs or circumstances. Triggered communications when a customer changes address, or first downloads your podcast or registers on your site or attends an event – the possibilities are endless.

How to get started

Start by being a lurker (some one that looks at content, but doesn’t interact with it). Search for content about your industry, brand, customers, competitors etc. But don’t just look at their web sites. Search on YouTube, iTunes for podcasts, Technorati for blogs, facebook or Orkut groups, or just search in google for industry forums. See what people are talking about, what gets them animated, what type of content do they like and what do they think about you and your brand. Then once you know how people behave in these channels, just slowly start to try some new things. Respond to a blog post, upload a audio recording from your customer event onto iTunes as a podcast or create a user survey on your site. Keep it simple initially, test and learn. But, don’t be afraid to try something new. It is a new world, embrace it. If you want to learn more, why not join my facebook group (Digital Marketing Training from Navigate) or ask me about digital marketing training.