Digital Marketing Strategy

What is a Strategy?

A plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.

What is Digital Marketing?

It aims to create demand using the power of the Internet.

It is measurable.

It gives brands opportunity to build tailored, optimised brand experiences

Image credit: Living Shadow from Wikimedia Commonshttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tape_measure_colored.jpeg

So then, what is a Digital MarketingStrategy?

Builds on traditional marketingstrategy, using the benefits and challenges within the digital medium.

Integrated online and offline strategies are key.

They speak to an overall brandidentity which is vital to achieve an organisation’s goals.

Strategy is about choices

The brand that attempts to be all things to all people riskslosing the clarityof its value proposition.

Image credit: D Sharon Pruitt

Consider the factors that affect your business.

For example:

•Market

•Competitor landscape

•Customers

•Core competencies

The Internet has changed traditional marketing models...

Porter’s 5 Forces

The 4 P’s

The 4P’s: product, price, placement and promotion; and Porter 5 Forces analysis have been re-examined and adapted.

The Internet allows for new Productsand Services.

They can be customised en masse, e.g. NIKEiD (http://nikeid.nike.com).

Pricing information is accessible on comparison websites. (www.pricerunner.co.uk and www.nextag.com)

Businesses need to differentiate on value – customers may pay a higher price for better value.

Placement and distribution is no longer determined by location (online bookings, eTicketing, mail order etc.).

Various technologies (APIs, SOAP services, RSS and XML) allow information and services to be distributed throughout the world.

Promotion online can be tracked, measured and targeted more effectively.

The new P: People

Allows for personalisation, peer-to-peer sharing, communities and consumer-centric organisations.

Seth Godin recommends these five elements:

•Data

•Stories

•Products

•Interaction

•Connection

Data:

The raw facts about your product or service.

Online data is richer than ever before!

Stories:

Markets are ‘conversations’.

Brands create stories.

Products:

Physical manifestations of your story.

Interactions:

Tactics to connect with consumers.

Comprise touch points of the brand.

Connection:

Like the 5th ‘P” – people ‘fall in love’ with your brand.

Creating and implementing a strategy.

Must cover:

•Who you are

•What you are offering

•Who you are offering it to

•Why and how you are doing this

Consider context.

Understand your business and market.

Use a SWOTanalysis:

•Strengths

•Weaknesses

•Opportunities

•Threats

Objectives:

Consider creativity and technology.

These should speak to the system AND the story.

They should also be aligned with the greater strategic objectives of your brand.

Value exchange:

•What value are you adding to the market?

•What constitutes success?

•How do you measure this?

Tactics...The how.

The strength of the tools is dependent on the type of objectives set.

Metrics:

How will you measure value exchange?

These are the key performance indicators (KPIs).

Set them up early on!

Ongoing optimisation:

Monitor, measure, experiment, learn, be proactive!

Use tools to gather data:

Google Insights; Flickr; Delicious; Spyfu; Quirk

SearchStatus; SEO Book’s Rank Checker; Change

Detection; Google Alerts; BrandsEye; Google Patent

Search; Google Adwords External Keywords Tool;

Google Trends; YouTube Selection Tool, etc.