The Digital Gateway

Session 4

The Digital Communications Mix

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this session, students should be able to;

• Understand the implications of the digital environment on

the marketing mix (7P’s)

• Identify and evaluate the variety of digital media

channels available for organisations.

• Analyse the digital communication landscape in order to

assess its effectiveness.

Goals of Digital Marketing

Communications

• Traffic building goals

– Use online media and offline promotion to drive traffic to a website

which convert to required outcomes (sales, leads etc.)

• Conversion and engagement goals

– Use on-sire communications to deliver an effective, relevant

message to the visitor which helps shape customer perceptions or

achieve required marketing outcome.

• Third-party site reach goals

– Reach, influence and engage with prospective customers on third-

party media sites

• Multichannel marketing goals

– Integrate all communications channels to help achieve

multichannel marketing objectives by supporting mix-mode buying

Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012

Characteristics of Digital Media

• From ‘push’ to ‘pull’

• From monologue to dialogue

• From one-to-many to one-to-some and one-to-one

• From one-to-many to many-to-many communications

• From ‘lean-back’ to ‘lean-forward’

• The medium changes the nature of standard marketing

communications tools such as advertising

• Increased communications with intermediaries

• Integration

Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012

The 6 Key Digital Media Channels

1. Search Marketing

• Search engine

optimisation (SEO)

• Paid search (PPC)

• Paid for inclusion feeds

2. Online PR

• Publisher outreach

• Community participation

• Media alerting

• Brand protection

3. Online Partnership

• Affiliate marketing

• Sponsorship

• Co-branding

• Link building

• Widget marketing

Offline communications

6. Direct mail

7. Exhibitions

8. Merchandising

9. Packaging

10. Word-of-mouth

Offline communications

1. Advertising

2. Personal selling

3. PR

4. Sales Promotion

5. Sponsorship

4. Interactive Ads

• Site-specific media buys

• Ad networks

• Contra-deals

• Sponsorship

• Behavioural targeting

5. Opt-in email

• House list email

• Cold (rented lists)

• Co-branded

• Ads in third party

newsletters

6. Social media marketing

• Audience participation

• Managing social

presence

• Viral campaigns

• Customer feedback

Websites &

Social

Presences

Offline Communications Online Communications Chaffey & Ellis-

Chadwick, 2012

Display Advertising

• Display advertising involves an advertiser paying for an

advertising placement on third-party sites such as publishers or

social networks

• A rectangular graphic displayed on a web page for the purposes

of advertising. It is normally possible to perform a click through to

access further information.

• Intended to attract traffic to a destination site (website, landing

page, microsite) by linking to the destination site of the advertiser

• One page impression occurs when a member of the audience

views a web page.

• A click-through occurs each time a user clicks on a banner

advertisement with the mouse to direct them to a web page that

contains further information.

Measuring Display Effectiveness

• Page and Ad impressions – one page impression occurs

when a member of the audience views a web page

• Reach – Number of unique individuals who view an

advertisement.

• Number of clicks – number of clicks generated by an ad

• Click-through – a click-through occurs each time a user clicks

on a banner advert.

• Click-through rate (CTR) The CTR is the proportion of clicks

vs. total ad impressions (CTR = clicks / ad impressions)

• Number of conversions – number of conversions

(registrations, sales, leads) generated by an ad

Types of Banner Ads

Interstitial

Pops up when you

leave a website Superstitial

Pops up between

pages

New 2 part Banners

Appearing in social media

spaces (LinkedIn)

Mobile banner ads

Compared to tradition banners, the file sizes allowed for

mobile banners is very small. This limits the banner

quality and ability to add in animation

Evaluation of Display Advertising

Benefits of Display Ads

• Can generate a direct

response

• Create brand awareness

and reach

• Can be highly targeted

• Lower cost compared to

traditional media

• Dynamic updates

available to ad

campaigns

Limitations of Display Ads

• Relatively low

clickthrough rates

(industry averages about

0.1%)

• Limited ROI and number

of conversions

• Issues with brand

reputation and where ads

are served

Social Media Advertising

• Social media advertising is paid-for

advertising across social media networks,

including:

– Facebook

– Twitter

– LinkedIn

– YouTube

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Search Engine Marketing

Two main types of SEM:

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) (Natural Search)

– Involves achieving the highest position possible or ranking in the

natural or organic listings in search engine results pages

(SERPS)

• Paid Search Marketing or Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

– Similar to conventional advertising – adverts are paid for by

organisation on a ‘per click’ basis

– A relevant text advert with a link to a company page is displayed

when the user types a specific phrase

– Labelled as ‘sponsored links’ or sponsored results’

Natural

search

Paid

Search Paid

Search

Keywords or Search Phrases

Search Engine Marketing

How Search Engines Work

SEO depends on several factors:

1. Selecting well focused keywords that

visitors would use

2. The relevance of the content of the site to

the keywords chosen

3. The quality and type of code used to

create the website

4. The freshness of information/news and

how often it is updated on the website

5. The quality and relevance of links on the

site, in particular inbound links from

relevant sites with very good page

rankings

6. Volume of traffic to site - popularity

7. Continual process that needs regular

management and monitoring

Two Important Factors for Good

Search Engine Ranking

• Matching between the web page copy and the key

phrases searched

– On-page optimisation; including keyword formatting and keyword

density (do not add too many keywords – see below)

• Links into pages (inbound or backlinks)

– Pages and sites with more external links from other sites will be

ranked more highly

– Quality of these links has become more important as Google’s

continued algorithm changes punishes sites that it feels abuses its

Webmaster Guidelines (too many irrelevant links, keyword

stuffing, paid for content etc)

Benefits and Limitations of SEO

Benefits

• Highly targeted traffic

• Products, services and brands

can be in front of a potential

customer at the precise time

they are looking for them

• Potentially low cost visitors –

no media costs, only for costs

of optimisation

• Dynamic – spiders will crawl

popular sites daily, so new

content is included relatively

quickly

Limitations

• Controlled by Search Engines!

• Changes often take web

masters by surprise

• Can be slow to achieve results

• Complex and dynamic nature –

search engines take into

account a variety of factors,

many are not published

• Ongoing investment required

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

• Text-based advertising appearing within the ‘sponsored’

section of the major search engines.

• Cost is incurred only when a user clicks on your advert.

• Ranking is not just based on highest paying click, but

also on the sites quality score

• Quality score is based on the relative number of click-

throughs on the adverts as well as the quality of the

landing pages.

Keywords or Search Phrases

Advert Description

(why you rather than

another advertiser?

Advert Title (link to keywords)

Pay-Per-Click Terms

Webpage (select carefully

– link to keyword)

Benefits and Limitations of PPC

Advertising

Benefits

• Advertiser is not paying for

advert to be displayed – only

when it is clicked on, reducing

wastage

• Highly targeted advertising

• Good accountability – can

calculate ROI easily

• Predictable traffic

• Allows editorial control

• Speed – listings can get

posted quickly

Limitations

• Competitive and expensive –

cost-per-click of some terms

can be very high (such as car

insurance)

• Requires some specialist

knowledge

• Can be time consuming to

manage campaigns on a daily

basis

Online PR

“Maximising favourable mentioned of your company, brands, products or

websites through third-party websites which are likely to be visited by

your target audience” (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2012)

Differences between Online PR and traditional PR:

• The audience is connected to organisations – consumers can now

communicate back to organisations after PR activities

• The members of the audience are connected to each other –

through publishing their own websites (blogs, Twitter, Facebook)

information can be rapidly distributed from one person to another, or

group to group

• The audience has access to other information – Internet facilitates

rapid comparison of statements and checking of statistics or facts

• Audiences pull information – now multiple sources of channels of

information, making it harder for PR activities to stand out.

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Online PR Evaluation

Advantages

• Reach – low cost method of reaching

niche or mass audiences

• Cost – there are no media costs, so only

costs are agency fees or internal staffing

costs

• Credibility – can help raise trust in

organisations, especially through

personal recommendations online

• Search engine optimisation – can help

generate quality backlinks that assist

SEO efforts

• Brand enhancement and protection –

favourable stories can enhance

reputation, while monitoring unfavourable

mentions can help protect the brand

Disadvantages

• Non-controllable

• Could be considered high-risk

investment

• Online blogs and content could

solicit negative comments

Online PR

Online

PR

Search Marketing

Activities

• Inbound link-

building

• Content

generation

• Blogs

• Feeds

• Press releases

Buzz-building activities

• Web editorial

contacts

• Viral Marketing

• Press releases and

social media releases

• Influencing media

owners

Brand engagement

activities

• Surveys and polls

• Audience research

• Social media and

user generated

content

• Own blogs

Brand Protection

strategies

• Social media

monitoring and

response

• Influencing media

owners and blogger

relations

• Negative SEO

Chaffey, 2008

Social Media – The Opportunities

Using customers to generate prospect leads

• Encouraging customers to share experiences can generate powerful WOM marketing for organisations

• 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations (Nielsen, 2012)

Gaining insight to improve customer relations

• Social media provides the opportunity to listen in and join in with conversations that customers are having – benefitting from rich insights into target audiences

• Organisations now are required to be accessible and personable

• Opportunity to listen to customer needs and provide information they need to better use products and services.

• Providing additional value to customers through building relationships and providing a personal experience

Social Media – The Opportunities

Managing brand reputation online

• Through tuning into to online conversations, organisations can identify key influencers in the market place and help manage reputation of the business.

• Can also hinder business, with social media, bad news travels even faster!

• Responding to all reviews, good and bad – using good reviews as an opportunity to add more about the brand (e.g. TripAdvisor).

Drive traffic and improve Google Rankings

• Social media can provide more creative ways of engaging customers and directing them to an organisations website.

• Linking Facebook and Twitter profiles to corporate websites can also enhance SEO and rankings.

Potential Social Media Goals

• Differentiate

• Remind

• Inform

• Persuade or change

attitudes

• Drive traffic

• Reach new audiences

• Generate leads

• Convert leads

• Generate sales

• Engage clients

• Retain clients

Developing a Social Media Strategy

• People – understand the adoption of social media within

an audience is an essential starting point.

• Objectives – what do you want to achieve? Different

goals should be set for different options to engage

customer across different aspects of the customer

lifecycle.

• Strategy – how will your goals be achieved? How will

social media support change and your overall marketing

goals?

• Technology – decide on best social media platforms

and tools to achieve goals

Outbound Email Marketing

• Customer Acquisition

– Cold email campaigns (list rental)

– Third party/co-branded email

• Customer Retention (contact strategy)

– Newsletter

– Event triggered (welcome message,

offers/sales)

– Conversions (abandoned carts, registered

for interest)

– Sales process (order confirmation,

delivery updates)

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Benefits of Email Marketing

• Cost effective

• Relationship building

• Engagement enabler

• Can help nurture relationships

• Measurable

• Can be fully tested

• Timely

• Faster campaign deployment (compared to direct mail)

• Fits with ‘always on’ lives

• Fits with multi-channel lifestyles

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The Anatomy of an Email

From Name

From Address

Subject Line

Snippet or

preview text

shown by

some email

readers Link to online

version

Copy and content

– including a

strong call to

action

Unsubscribe Link

Social sharing

links

Footer –

including

organisation

details

What is Affiliate Marketing?

• When a third party website markets the products or services

of others and they are remunerated on the basis of a

commission or fee for any sale or action agreed

• Affiliate marketing is essentially ‘paying on performance’

• Examples of large organisations who use the affiliate model to

generate revenue and form their core business include:

GoCompare, Compare the Market and Money Saving Expert

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Who is an Affiliate?

• A third party who will promote products or services for a

commission based on reward

• Many different types of affiliate, usually differentiated by the

method of promotion:

– Content

– Email

– Paid search

– Reward/cashback

– Voucher Code

– Comparison/Directory

31

Who is an Affiliate Network?

What is an Affiliate Network?

• Provides a trusted platform for affiliate marketing to occur

• Provides a technology platform

• Work as the ‘middle man’ between merchants

(advertisers) and affiliates

• Enable affiliates and merchants to access information and

creative

• UK-based networks include: Affiliate Window, Commission

Junction, Trade Doubler, Affilinet and Webgains

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How Affiliate Marketing Works: A

Summary

• An affiliate promotes products or services for a specified advertiser for a commission

• A merchant is the advertiser

• An affiliate network provides the technology platform and assists in managing the relationship between merchants and affiliates

• Merchants pay a commission to affiliates for desirable actions

• Networks charge a standard monthly fee and an override on each affiliate sale generated

• Affiliate marketing relies on the use cookies and tracking pixels to record desired actions.

Affiliate Marketing Evaluation

Benefits

• Reach different audiences

• Drive additional traffic to the

organisation’s website

• Additional brand and website

exposure and awareness

• SERPS visibility

• Drive sales, leads or

registrations

• Performance-based

• Low cost

Limitations

• Incremental profit or sales may

be limited – cannibalising

business the organisation may

have achieved anyway

• May damage brand reputation

– could be displayed on sites

inconsistent with brand image

• Programme manage time

requirements

• Associated programme

management fees (affiliate

network fees)

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Using Traditional Media to Drive

Traffic to a Site

Range of response mechanisms for offline media:

• Home page – easiest and likely to be most memorable, but

can be hard to track ROI.

• Microsite of landing page – directing consumers to a

landing page on the site (such as www.dialaphone.com/tv) .

Can help measure responses, but can be difficult to

remember) .

• Microsite/campaign URLS (CURLs) – using specific

campaign URLs, such as www.quotemehappy.com or

www.underdog.co.uk, which can be easy to remember.

Benefits of Using Offline Communications

to Support Digital Campaigns

Offline communications are most effective in

achieving four critical things:

• Reach

• Brand awareness

• Emotional connection with the brand

• Explanation of the online value proposition

Issues in Offline Communications to

Encourage Online Usage

• Higher cost – ROI for online tends to be higher than offline methods.

• Higher wastage – online marketing can be effectively tracked to give a true picture of ROI.

• Poorer targeting – targeting by behaviour, location, time and keyword, site content is readily possible online but not always offline (except with direct marketing).

• Poorer accountability – can be more difficult and expensive to track responses.

• Less personalised – Cookies can be personalised, leaflets can’t.

• Less interactive experience – most offline communications are one-way, but interaction is possible online.

Test Your Understanding

• For an organisation you know well, identify four digital

media channels that are currently used as part of their

communications mix.

– Asses the suitability of the media identified in terms of achieving

the organisation’s communications objectives

– Asses the suitability of the media identified in terms of reaching

their target audiences

– Recommend what other digital media the organisation could use,

justifying your choices.

Bibliography

• Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick , F. (2012) Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation

and Practice. Fifth edition, Harlow, Pearson.

• Smith, P. R. and Chaffey, D. (2008) Emarketing Excellence (Emarketing Essentials).

Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann;