Make Digital Marketing Work

We have been approached a lot of times by potential clients who do not have very much budget and our policy is to help wherever we can, and to be honest about where we can’t.  One of the biggest misconceptions that seems to come up is that you can perform parts of the overall mix and expect it to work.  You can’t, or at least you shouldn’t.  The interactive Mix works because it deals with a cause and effect basis that engages with consumers may not be aware of your products and services but are open to finding out more about them.  It does so using techniques that have been proven to work but which are never quite the same for each client but which rely on careful measurement and analysis throughout each stage to ensure that the results are kept optimum.  We can work across a number of budgets but the ROI we deliver is in terms of actual sales and revenue which we create demand for through the process

It isn’t enough to simply build up the database, it is what you then do with the database that makes our techniques deliver.  We build up trust and begin to test offers whilst segmenting the data based on a series of criteria.  Its all about building relationships between clients and customers, and to build on this through to first sale, repeat and regular sale and then referral.

When we have created the process you will then be able to see it working for you as an overall marketing process, so that for an agreed spend you will already have an idea of how much money you are going to make.

We do pride ourselves in being different and offering up a joined up digital marketing solution because we don’t actually see too many other agencies doing that.  At the same time there is an argument raging about whether digital agencies are grown up enough to act as lead agency for clients.  We think that the reason many digital agencies are not able to offer this is because they are still focused on providing tactical solutions rather than looking at the strategic marketing process that is needed for each client and offering a joined up solution to meet it.  I’ve been having a lot of discussions online about this very subject and the longer the conversations go on the more I am convinced that the solution is to look at all digital media as a strategic toolbox, and not focus on providing individual disciplines.

A lot of this isn’t necessarily the fault of the industry because most agencies started out as tactical suppliers of the shiny new thing, whether it was web design fifteen years ago, or display advertising twelve years ago, or search ten years ago, or email eight years ago, or analytics seven years ago  or social media five years ago.

That made a lot of sense then because the accepted sensible way to do things was get in bed with an offline brand or advertising agency and become the digital guys for them whilst getting introduced to a great client list and charging whatever the market would pay.   Digital Agencies were the remora fish to a bunch of sharks, cleaning off whatever needed to be done and some have grown extremely large doing it.  That symbiotic relationship now though is challenged because clients have heard that this digital media lark is cheaper and works better than the offline stuff.  Of course Ad and brand agencies are still telling the world not to panic and that they are still the top of the food chain.  More over they are still looking at the world in terms of the way that they have always done things, and therein lays the problem.  The world isn’t like that that anymore and it won’t work.

Clients want it and digital agencies have to stop thinking tactically if they are going to provide it.  Its taking the strategic approach that will give digital the showcase it deserves and deliver the benefits to clients.

With all the headlines about how incredible Pay per click advertising is and the general hysteria that happens when the phrase Social media is uttered it’s easy to focus too much on individual tactics and lose sight of your overall digital marketing strategy.

The first part of the interactive Mix is about driving traffic.  Some might call it eye balls but it is about building an audience of people who may not have been aware of you but are open to the kind of offer that you have.  Affiliates can provide a readymade audience for you but are often overlooked by agencies and clients alike.

Basically speaking an affiliate is a site which provides content to build an audience.  It can be content that is produced by the affiliate themselves or by third parties.  The content builds the audience and the weight of the audience is what makes partnering with an affiliate appealing.  Rather than just selling advertising on the site though, the affiliate promotes products on behalf of partners and is rewarded in the form of commission for success.  Success could be defined in terms of traffic produced for partners but is more often than not defined in terms of actual sales that the affiliate creates from the audience.

Affiliates therefore include a series of product forms on their page which enable their audience to make purchases.  Another popular affiliate technique is to link directly to a completed shopping basket which therefore allows the customer to quickly pay for their items on the partners site after making the decision to purchase on the affiliate site.

What makes affiliates more appealing than display advertising for many partners is that affiliates are only rewarded when the defined success KPI has been achieved.  It therefore provides low risk to the partner and makes the choice of partner for the affiliate key, as they do not want to fill their site with partners whose offer is not of interest to their audience.

Some affiliates decide to keep the commission they earn from their partners but others give a portion of it back to their customers in the form of cashback.  Sites such as Rpoints, CashBackKings, GreasyPalm, Quidco  Quidco and TopCashBack operate their sites as member sites where the content they provide is made of from their partners.  As each sale is made the commission is split between the two so that members earn cashback on each purchase.  This promotes loyalty amongst the audience members to the affiliate and also provides a deal hungry audience for the partner to place their deal in front of.

Which type of affiliate is right for which client obviously hinges on the unique offer of each client and how it relates to the audience of the particular affiliate.  Demographic profiling and geographic location all play a part in the decision but the key to any affiliate relationship is that if the partner doesn’t do well out of it, then neither does the affiliate.

I was going to start off by writing that the Interactive Marketing World is changing but that’s a bit like saying we all get older every day.  Of course it is changing it has been changing ever since the first banner ad appeared on a website.  It’s been changing since the first email was sent asking people to click through to a website and it has been changing ever since the first context sensitive ads appeared.  It’s always been changing and has moved at warp speed.

My point though is that a fundamental shift is happening at the moment.  The individual disciplines are becoming mature now, and new channels are not so much new as just recognitions of things that had been happening anyway and embraced into the overall interactive marketing mix.  What is changing is that the focus is moving away from the disciplines and towards the over arching strategy that binds it all together.  Its moving Away from a toys focus and into a business focus that looks at the results and what it actually achieves for business.

I would argue that even though you can generate metric ton load of traffic for your site that unless you are able to convert it, then it is a waste of time.  I would also argue that even though you have the best most necessary products in the world, unless people know about them you have wasted your time. That’s what I am talking about, joining the disciplines up into a cohesive chain that provides an overall strategy for a customer.  It begins with a group of people who have never heard of you and leads them through a journey that ends with regular customers who buy from you habitually and who tell everyone they know about how great you are.

Some of the early clients I worked with would say that they didn’t need to have time spent generating more traffic because they were satisfied with their current traffic levels but they didn’t understand that if you are optimising every part of the chain then the results are not just greater, they are exponentially greater.

It’s everywhere at the moment.  Media agencies, marketing commentators and clients are all in the mood to change as the cry goes out for the marketing industry to re-invent itself.  Reinvention though is a big thing to undertake and there has to be a genuine will there to create something new and better if the pitfalls are going to be avoided and the new marketing just turns out to be the same marketing with whole host of different acronyms.

From my point of view I see the need to fundamentally change the view that ‘the message’ and ‘the big idea’ are not all powerful links in the chain.  This has to be replaced with the consumer and customer and engaging with them in a relationship.

Part of this is creating content that will facilitate two way communications and provoke discussion.   Another important part is how your overall Digital Marketing Strategy fits together.  These two elements will take you and your prospects on a journey together from the point of first contact right the way through to the point you have created relationships with regular customers who buy from you habitually and also refer you to others that they know.  This is the basis of the Interactive Mix.  It provides an end to end solution for acquiring, converting and retaining customers, and is proven to work.

I can see why a lot of offline and integrated agencies are going to have a few problems adapting to this new world.  It is because their disciplines have grown up with the idea that a message will be heard and picked up by consumers.  That they will identify with and accept the message and then rush to the shops to buy your product.  The problem is that consumers these days:

1)      Will not believe what you tell them

2)      Will not believe what you show them

3)      Will believe what a friend (no matter how little they actually know them) tells them

4)      Will go with the majority

5)      Will voice their concerns and dissatisfactions with you brand

6)      Will defect and find different alternatives

7)      Can stop you talking to them

8)      Expect you to treat them well in return for buying your product

9)      Will punish you for lying to them

10)   Expect you to listen to them

That is a world where suddenly the concept of message led communications feels a bit like a roman gladiator turning up on a modern battlefield with its smart bomb technology and automatic weapons – a bit inadequate. That is why changing the lyrics of an old, well known song to include your brand name, brand message, and creating an ad with a cute kid and a doting mother just doesn’t cut it anymore.  Consumers are too sophisticated for that now, and if that is what you serve them they will assume you are lying to them, won’t believe what you tell them and punish you for lying to them.  You could conceivably lose a whole swathe of customers.

For agencies, ingrained in this way of thinking, I can see problems, because the temptation will be to play lip service to this new world whilst egos demand that sooner or later everyone will get back into line and ‘the message’ will rule once more.  The problem is that clients won’t stand for that either now.

My personal view is that Online/Interactive/Digital agencies are better placed to deliver these strategies because they have grown out of the channels that consumers are now screaming for.  They haven’t had to adapt to them, it is a native language.  When I visited Egypt for the first time I contacted a local guide, when I learned how to dive I chose an instructor who had been diving since aqua lungs became recreationally available.  Its the same with Digital Marketing.  If you understand where the channels came from, how they developed and how to interact with people through them, then you have a much better idea of how to deliver a winning strategy to clients.