Part One
IN the world of marketing and communication, adaptability is key to survival. As audiences evolve and new platforms surface, strategies and tactics should likewise change.
Which brings us to the world of digital marketing. During pre-Internet times, marketing was done through the so-called traditional means: direct marketing, broadcast, print, outdoor, and referrals. The advent of the Internet, particularly social media, changed this. While traditional methods are still very much alive, many customer interactions now take place over digital channels.
The pandemic further accelerated digital adoption, both for brands and consumers. An article by auditing and consultancy firm Deloitte emphasized the way “digital helps shape the new normal” in all sorts of ways.
“With physical contacts kept to a minimum, it is digital that proves to be a lifeline for many organizations. Consumer brands and retailers who have embraced digital are now growing their online orders and keep their business running through home offices. Through Covid-19, it becomes visible what being digital truly means. It is not just about cool apps, but about having a solution chain that runs deep across processes, people and technology. It’s a fundamental change in the way we work, live and do business,” Deloitte said in an article posted on its website.
“By becoming sharply aware of the consequences of Covid-19 and the likely scenarios ahead, you can adapt and thrive in the new normal. Almost overnight, customer behavior, media consumption, and the internal processes needed to deliver on them have changed,” it added.
Some of these behavior changes had to do with the digital space. For example, people previously averse to digital transactions were forced to resort to online shopping and bills payment, when long lockdowns prevented them from going out at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. For many of these people, the behavior stuck, even sans lockdowns and mobility issues.
Inbound vs. Outbound
AS consumers go digital, so should we. Thus, the rise of digital marketing. The Dublin-based Digital Marketing Institute (DMI) defined digital marketing as “the use of new media or digital technology to achieve marketing and business goals.” Digital marketing activities are done with the use of digital formats and the internet: computers, mobile devices, and digital billboards on the device side, and social media and digital marketing software for online shared experiences.
These are what help marketers “create, distribute, and track their campaign on digital platforms to drive success,” DMI said.
Before going into specific platforms, it is important to understand two key principles in digital marketing: outbound and inbound marketing.
Outbound marketing happens when a brand pushes a message to a specific target audience to gain awareness for a product or service. This applies to both digital and traditional marketing.
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is when a brand pulls its audience toward its content, product, or service. It is about roping people in, mostly those who are already interested in your brand, through channels such as blogs, search engines, email subscriptions, word of mouth, and online reviews or recommendations.
“In today’s business world, inbound marketing is the most important aspect to digital marketing as it allows you to attract customers who consider your content or service relevant to them. The strength of inbound marketing is user intent: it is the audience who have the internal drive to take action to find your product. This action is based on their own needs, and how and when they want to proceed with a sale or conversion. Good inbound marketing provides efficient and effective routes for your audience to come to your brand,” DMI said.
Media types
THEN there’s the concept of owned, paid, and earned media—very likely something that you are already familiar with. In gist, owned media are those that a brand creates and manages. Paid media, as the term implies, is media or advertising that a brand pays for. Earned media is basically free publicity—those generated through PR and by consumers who, of their own choice, talk about and share content about a brand or product. Each of these three media types can be used to achieve specific objectives for a brand’s campaign.
Owned media can be used to develop brand personality, as the brand is in full control of what it wants people to see and what message it wants to convey. This allows a brand to be very personal in its promotion, highlighting its best qualities and showing its values to its audiences. But it may take some time to build enough trust and reputation to get high levels of engagement from these digital assets. Some examples of owned media are blogs, websites, and a brand’s social media channels.
Paid media allows your brand to reach a bigger audience in a shorter span of time, as you do not need to wait for a reputation build-up to be able to show your content to your target audience. You can advertise on social, do paid search or display advertising, or tap influencers – as long as you have the money, you can choose what kind of content your target audience sees, as well as where and when they see it. These efforts can help scale up awareness and familiarity of your brand by way of wide audience reach, ad repetition, and defined audience targeting. These can even drive sales and conversions.
Earned media includes shares, mentions, reposts, and reviews of your content – basically anything that gets your content on people’s social media timelines. As consumers tend to believe “normal people” more, especially if these are friends or trusted contacts, earned media is valuable commodity for marketers. Earned media can build trust and credibility faster than paid ads. Tread with much caution though, as your content may become viral for the wrong reasons. Virality, even the positive kind, may also not necessarily bring people to your brand. They may engage well with your content without responding to any of your calls to action. They may remember only your content and not your brand.
While these media types can work independently, leveraging on all three for your campaigns can help boost your chances of success. For example, a piece of content posted on one of your owned assets may also be used for paid search. Another piece of content on an owned channel may be used to influence earned media.
Digital channels
THERE are several channels that a marketer can use to reach its target audiences. Decisions on which channels to use for a specific campaign will mainly depend on a brand’s objectives and budget. The most cost-effective channel combination—there will be instances when you will need only one channel or sometimes two or more—will be your best bet.
The digital channels currently available to marketers include:
- Content marketing
- Display advertising
- Email and automation marketing
- Organic search or search engine optimization (SEO)
- Paid search or pay per click (PPC)
- Social media marketing
- Website optimization
We will tackle each one in more detail next week. We will also look at how digital and traditional channels can work together to deliver the best results for your brand.
PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier organization for PR professionals around the world. Abigail L. Ho-Torres is AVP and Head of Customer Experience of Maynilad Water Services, Inc. She spent more than a decade as a business journalist before making the leap to the corporate world.
We are devoting a special column each month to answer our readers’ questions about public relations. Please send your questions or comments to askipraphil@gmail.com.