digital marketing 101

Digital Marketing 101

an overview of digitaladvertising, media, strategy & process

version 1.0 | April 2010

Digital Advertising ArsenalDisplay(banners)

Editorial(Paid for)

S.E.M(Search Engine Marketing)

Email(eDM)

Affiliate(Partner Programs)

Promotions(Sales, Coupons, Competitions)

Ads that appear on websites, in pop-ups etc.

Paying for your page to be shown on search result pages.

Sending email newsletters or electronic direct mail.

Paid for coverage in online news, magazines & portals.

Paying site to promote your product for a commission.

Digital versions of marketing sales promotions.

Integration of Online ChannelsEXAMPLE OBJECTIVE: Create Brand Awareness through transmission of brand messages to consumers

Impacts on

Traffic driver

Website(Main Brand Site)

Microsite(Campaign Specific Site)

SEO(Search Engine Optimisation)

Social Media(Blogs, Networks, Social Info)

Public Relations(To gain unpaid editorial coverage)

SEM(Search Engine Marketing)

Editorial Coverage(News sites, Publishers etc)

Media ModelThe Owned Bought Earned media model is a commonly cited media planning model

SOURCE: http://blogs.forrester.com/interactive_marketing/2009/12/defining-earned-owned-and-paid-media.html

1 Create a solar system of owned media. 2 Recognize that earned media is a result of brand behavior3 Your paid media is not dead, but it is evolving into a catalyst.

http://blogs.forrester.com/interactive_marketing/2009/12/defining-earned-owned-and-paid-media.html

http://blogs.forrester.com/interactive_marketing/2009/12/defining-earned-owned-and-paid-media.html

OWNED

EARNED

BOUGHT

Media Convergence

Websites

Email Lists

AdvertisingSocial Media

SEO

Social Tools

SEM

SocialAds

eDMViral

Created by the brand. Controlled messages

Created by the brand. Controlled messages. Broadcast by third party

Can be created by brand or 3rd party.Uncontrolled. Spread/broadcast by 3rd party.

OWNED

EARNED

BOUGHT

Media Convergence

WebsitesEmail ListsContent

AdvertisingSocial Media

SEO

Social Tools

SEM

SocialAds

eDMViral

Created by the brand. Controlled messages

Created by the brand. Controlled messages. Broadcast by third party

Can be created by brand or 3rd party.Uncontrolled. Spread/broadcast by 3rd party.

VIRAL EXAMPLE:“Piano Stairs - The Fun Theory”Owned: Video created by brand/agencyBought: Media spend to supportEarned: YT hosted, spread by net users

Digital Strategy DevelopmentA top line view of some steps to develop your online strategy.

0. Evaluate your current online activities.1. Define your communications & business objectives.2. Identify & describe your target audiences.3. Plan your target audience interaction.4. Define the broad strategy.5. Create a channel and form plan.6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.

Digital Strategy Development0. Evaluate your current online activities.1. Define your communications & business objectives.2. Identify & describe your target audiences.3. Plan your target audience interaction.4. Define the broad strategy.5. Create a channel and form plan.6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.

‣ Look at your current analytics and gain some actionable insights:‣ What content is popular? Why?‣ How are users finding their way to the site? Direct, Search Keywords, referring sites

etc‣ How are users navigating through the site?‣ Are goals set-up being attained?

‣ Look at your competitors sites:‣ What points of differentiation are there? Are they meaningful?‣ What learnings can you take away?

Digital Strategy Development0. Evaluate your current online activities.

1. Define your communications & business objectives.2. Identify & describe your target audiences.3. Plan your target audience interaction.4. Define the broad strategy.5. Create a channel and form plan.6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.

‣ Business objectives are important to have framed. ‣ Digital projects often involve multiple stakeholder departments. ‣ Ensuring these are clearly defined means that all agree to work towards the common

goal, at a top-level. ‣ This helps with buy-in, cooperation and importantly provides strong strategic

direction.‣ Communications goals are important to understand.‣ These will be critical in sense checking ideas to ensure you’re still on track.‣ There are often multiple goals which should be prioritized by importance to the

organisation.

Digital Strategy Development0. Evaluate your current online activities.1. Define your communications & business objectives.

2. Identify & describe your target audiences.3. Plan your target audience interaction.4. Define the broad strategy.5. Create a channel and form plan.6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.

‣ Define your target audience in human terms.‣ What do they want?‣ In what way could they engage with you?‣ In what way do they want to engage with you?‣ What is the common social object between you the brand and your consumers?‣ Where are they when it’s best for you to talk to them? Facebook? Google?

MSNmessenger?‣ All the usual relevant demographic and psychographic information.‣ Also include technographics; http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html

http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html

http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html

Digital Strategy Development0. Evaluate your current online activities.1. Define your communications & business objectives.2. Identify & describe your target audiences.

3. Plan your target audience interaction.4. Define the broad strategy.5. Create a channel and form plan.6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.

‣ Based on your evaluation and research of points 0-2, determine the kind of interaction you should have with your target audience.

‣ Some examples include:‣ Do you create a blog with new posts that keeps your consumer coming back?‣ Do you create a short snappy company overview with a CTA to get in touch?‣ Do you create immersive experiences using interactive and visual graphics?‣ Do you create a community?

‣ Consider, among other things, how your target audience:‣ Wants to engage with you?‣ How they use the net?‣ What are their technographics?‣ What you can do better than competitors?

Digital Strategy Development0. Evaluate your current online activities.1. Define your communications & business objectives.2. Identify & describe your target audiences.3. Plan your target audience interaction.

4. Define the broad strategy.5. Create a channel and form plan.6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.

‣ Create a Digital Brand Manifesto to consolidate the analysis from steps 0-3.‣ This should include in one page, an overview of how it will work together and why.‣ This manifesto will help you sell the project inwards, brief agencies, define your work and

educate newcomers to the project.‣ Write it with the same personality and tone that your brand uses to communicate in.

Digital Strategy Development0. Evaluate your current online activities.1. Define your communications & business objectives.2. Identify & describe your target audiences.3. Plan your target audience interaction.4. Define the broad strategy.

5. Create a channel and form plan.6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.

‣ Evaluate Bought, Paid and Earned media. ‣ Decipher what media mix you need based on your goals, resources, target audience

etc.‣ Consider the costs of media and production of elements.

‣ This is where you consider social media engagement as a long-term strategy. ‣ Does community building fit in with your interaction plan? ‣ In what form, on which platforms etc?

‣ Consider the effects of decisions on SEO, as organic search is an important factor in long-term web strategy.

‣ Some example strategies include:‣ Community Strategy: Using media and platforms that help build a strong network

of brand advocates and consumer relationships.‣ Content Strategy: Creating and disseminating engaging ongoing content (e.g..

videos, blogs, games). Consider what is relevant, interesting and sustainable.‣ Communicative Strategy: Making it easy for consumer to reach you, by opening

different channels for easy and quick live interaction (e.g.. Skype, MSN, twitter, livechats)

Digital Strategy Development0. Evaluate your current online activities.1. Define your communications & business objectives.2. Identify & describe your target audiences.3. Plan your target audience interaction.4. Define the broad strategy.5. Create a channel and form plan.

6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.

‣ Here you write briefs to execute (build and dispatch) all the media elements. ‣ Some examples‣ Website brief‣ Banner brief‣ Social Media engagement plan and guidelines‣ A content schedule.



Website Process:1. Overhaul your current site by looking at the analytics again.2. Map out the current site. Then take it apart and map out a draft new site.‣ List the content you want to have and how it is inter-linked. ‣ Consider scaling the site in the future, how will that work.

2B: STOP! Sense check what you’ve done so far.3. Using site content, create the wireframes and back-end set-up4. Develop design skins to overlay on top of the wireframes.5. Develop the content (and remember to consider SEO when doing so). i.e.‣ How much flash to use.‣ Copywriting with an SEO balance.



Banner Considerations‣ Before starting, you should consider the following:‣ Is the message a brand or product direct response?‣ Where are the clickthrus going? Do you need to build a landing page?‣ Will the media buy allow for contextual targeting? (i.e. buying in relevant

keywords, environments etc)‣ Do the media buy and production budgets allow for rich-media?‣ When will it go in market? How long will it be in market? What else,

environmentally, is going on at that time?‣ What are the tech specs?



Banner Creation Process1. Creative Brief formed2. Creative concepts are story-boarded including copy and sketches.3. Concepts are digitally designed as statics/flats4. Design flats are used as the storyboard for flash designers or other developers to animate and build.5. Completed banners are dispatched to media agency/publisher for ad-serving.

That’s all for now!

For more thoughts, ideas and explanations of marketing and digital strategy, visit my marketing notebook, ‘The Forest Through The Trees’ .

By Marek Wolski

This document was born from notes, scribbes and discussions I had while giving several friends intros into digital. It is therefore planned to be a work-in-progress, with additonal sections added to be added as more discussions are had.

http://throughthetrees.tumblr.com


