August 6, 2018

2. 0 : Understanding the different nature of digital channels

2.0 : Understanding the different nature of digital channels based on geographic, demographic, and digital fit for a campaign

Dr. Tahir Rashid, Senior Lecturer, Salford Business School, UK

Before the development of the internet, marketing communication used to be carried out through traditional media such as television, radio, bill posters, and through the direct mail.

But with the development of the World Wide Web in the ‘80s by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, digital media has formed a regular and integral part of most marketing communication.

In countries with high internet penetration, the internet offers an increasingly important marketing communications platform.

In this session, we will try to understand the different digital channels that are available to carry out a given campaign. We will discuss the characteristics based on geographic, demographic, and digital fit for a given campaign. This important because we want to use the most effective digital marketing channels based on the buyer persona.

A “buyer persona” is a fictional individual who is developed by an organization based on the organization’s researched profile of its typical customer

We will look at search engine marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, mobile marketing, and also have an overview of the paid channels as well as consider community-focused engagement through these digital channels.

Colin Telford, Managing Partner, The Candidate Ltd, UK

It’s important for us to use a lot of different channels because we are trying to find those pockets of candidates that exist across the web. So there are different types of candidates that operate on search engines than on social media channels and also, for example, on the online job boards, which we also use.

Case study example of digital marketing communication channels used by The Candidate Ltd:

Search engines, social media and websites

The main difference between the different candidates that exist are that some of them are passive, i.e. they are not actually looking for a new job or a new role but would obviously look at the opportunity should it come along, and the other type of candidate is the one that’s active, those active candidates in the market who are actively looking for a new job and both types of candidates are found in different places of the Web.

Example of different stages of a single buyer persona:

  • Passive – individuals are not looking for a job
  • Active – individuals in active job search mode

Alex Charalambidis, Digital Marketing Strategist, MONKS, Greece

I think all of the online channels but it depends of the client or the project, especially search, display, social channels, email, and some other techniques like affiliation and remarketing.

MONKS case study example:

choice of marketing communication channels depends on the organization and its buyer persona and usually includes:

Search engines, websites, social media and email

It is really important because there are customers and consumers who they don’t have a Facebook account or they don’t know how to use let’s say Instagram, or even they don’t watch TV.

Based on your business objectives research your buyer persona’s preferences for media use before you invest into the development of your message

So, yes, integration of channels it’s amazing not only to sell, or to meet your objectives, but first of all to find the prospect customer.

Again it’s based on the project and the target audience. When the objective is the awareness, we are trying to find people across channels, but when the objective is to have sales or conversions, we are trying to find the same consumer in different channels but with different creative and content.

Once communication channels are identified they are used to meet different business objectives using different content.

Additional materials

The internet makes the decisions for you

Beware of the filter bubble as an individual and a company – think about the information that is consumed by your customers. See what the filter bubble is by watching the video below.

 

References

World Internet users

http://www.internetworldstats.com/…

Ostrowski, D. A. (2013, July). Identification of trends in consumer behavior through social media. In 17th World Multi-conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics: WMSCI2013, Orlando, Florida (pp. 9-12).

http://www.iiis.org/CDs2013/CD2013…

Please see following pages for chapter 2:

2.1 Search Engines – differences in countries – based on the case study examples
2.2 Social Media platforms differences in countries and how to they can be used
2.3 Email marketing and how it can be used
2.4 Affiliate marketing and how it can be used
2.5 Mobile marketing and how it could be used
2.6 Paid channels overview – search and social
2.7 Communities focused engagement