Effectiveness Anxiety & Measuring Cross Media Performance Is Challenging :)

Understanding brand impact across multi channels reveals how customer communication and interaction improve brand awareness and perceptions, ultimately leveraging brand growth and the bottom line. Yet, there is advertiser/marketer anxiety about measuring brand effectiveness caused by lack of understanding of the holistic impact of digital media in brand building? 

Most marketers feel they can assess some aspects of brand performance, but there are vacuums. Blind spots made ‘fortified treasure’ invisible and surely impacting a capacity to measure cross media channels performance, while lack of in-depth understanding of integrated campaigns across digital and non-digital activities is also a challenge?

good-luck (Team Digital @Expertek US)

Online Performance Marketing & Magic Of Situation Analysis

The online marketplace is complicated and vibrant; companies should critically analyze the market environment in which they are functional, identify opportunities and then plan how they can compete effectively. Understanding an organization's eco system is a key part of situation analysis, and forms a strong foundation for all types of marketing planning but especially when devising a digital marketing strategy. What should be reviewed in situation analysis? From the perspective of a business creating a digital marketing plan, situation analysis should review these factors;

Customers: Digital proposition and communications should be based around the customer: their characteristics, behaviors, needs and wants. So our view is that marketers should start with the customer when analyzing the situation.

Marketplace Analysis: including intermediaries, influencers and partners resources. This is a summary of the main online influences on buying during the customer journey or path to shopping. We will see that there is a wide range of influences including search engines, publisher media sites, blogs, review sites and social networks which should all be considered. Marketplace analysis also involves reviewing opportunities and threats from digital channels and technology including novel business and financial models.

Competitors: Benchmarking customer propositions and communications activities against competitors can identify opportunities for new approaches and digital marketing activities that is imperative to be polished.

Likewise other critical part of situation analysis involves an internal review of the effectiveness of existing digital marketing initiatives. This will include reviewing current results from digital marketing channels activation by review of key performance indicators (KPIs) and the organizational capabilities and processes used to manage digital marketing strengths and weaknesses. 

And lastly, to be successful in online activation environments it is critical to be vigilant so you can effectively react to changes in the marketplace.

good-luck (Team Digital @Expertek US)

Digital Marketing Implementation & Practice

 A company that has developed an effective online customer experience is only part-way to success in digital marketing. In the days of the digital transformation boom a common expression was: ‘If you build it, they will come.’ This famous line proved true of a football stadium built in the film Field of Dreams, but unfortunately it doesn’t apply to websites or other forms of online presence like mobile apps or social media sites.

Take an example that; Effective promotion and achieving visibility of the auditorium is necessary to attract some of the many show visitors to that stand and encourage them to interact. Similarly, if you want to maximize quality visitors within a target audience to your online presences to acquire new customers online, Digital marketers have to select the appropriate online and offline marketing communications?

Planning for how digital media are used includes both short-term campaigns to support a particular goal such as launching a new product, promoting a sale or encouraging prospects to attend an event, and longer-term ‘always-on’ or continuous e-communications activities which review the best mix of communications to use to drive visitors to a site and achieve the key outcomes for the site such as product sales (b2c retailer), lead generation (for a b2b company), engagement with a brand or subscriptions or ad revenue (for an online publisher or consumer brand).

And in the end (just quickly wrapping up my thoughts) Some digital marketers may consider traffic building to be a continuous process, but others may view it as a specific campaign, perhaps to launch a site or a major enhancement. Some methods tend to work best continuously; others are short term.

good-luck (Team Digital @Expertek US)

Selecting The Right Mix Of Digital Media Communications Verticals?

 When selecting the mix of digital media for a campaign or longer-term investments, marketers will determine the most appropriate mix based on their knowledge built up through experience of previous campaigns and taking input from their consultants such as experienced colleagues or agency partners.

We (Team Digital @ Expertek US) suggested that many online marketing failures have resulted from poor control of media spending. The communications mix should be optimized to minimize the cost of acquisition?

When this experience isn’t there, which is often the case with new digital media opportunities, it is important to do a more structured evaluation including factors such as the ability of each medium to influence perceptions, drive a response, the cost of response and the quality of response – are respondents more likely to convert to the ultimate action such as purchase? What is their likely lifetime value?

How a digital media mix might typically vary according to budget (as an example) Below imagery showing that for a direct response digital campaign with limited budget? Overall investment in controllable environment along with targeted media which typically have a lower cost-per-acquisition is a main focus.

good-luck (Team Digital @ Expertek US)

STRONG BRANDS / Building your brand strength for the new generation of online shoppers?

 This is no longer an especially new idea, businesses know that their brands are a factor in consumer decisions, and thus help them to generate future sales. 

By measuring the strength of brands in consumers’ minds, shows that strong brands are more resilient to challenges in the external environment and produce superior shareholder returns over the long-term. 

Marketers are under pressure to move the metrics that are most visible and available right ‘now’ – sales first and foremost, and then from there, readily available response metrics such as enquiries or click-throughs that might suggest movement along the path-to-purchase. What is harder to see is any subtle shift, or positive strengthening, that has been made in the consumer’s mind. A push that might help preventing competitor onslaught to influence a future decision in our favor, possibly long after the marketer approving that spend has moved on. 

To value long-term effects as a valid and desirable outcome from marketing investment, businesses must firstly measure this effect in the mind of consumers. Fortunately, we don’t need to re-invent the wheel here. Extensive research and development breaks down the intangibles of brands into three simple and measurable parts. 

1. Meaning – meeting needs and positive affinity
2. Difference – standing apart from competition in some positive way
3. Noticeable – coming spontaneously to mind in a buying situation 

These component parts can (and should) be looked at individually or combined into a ‘brand power’ metric that is proven to drive long-term sales.

good-luck (Team Digital @ Expertek US)

Planning Integrated Marketing Communications

Team Digital @ Expertek US (www.expertek.net), in its definition of media planning, highlights the importance of the role of media planning when they say that the planner: 

* Needs to understand the customer and the brand to unearth a key insight for the communication/solution [We Call It Relevance]. 

* As media channels have mushroomed and communication channels have multiplied, it has become increasingly important for communication to cut through the self belief and connect with its audience [We Call it Distinctiveness]. 

* The planner can provide the edge needed to ensure the solution reaches out through the clutter to its intended audience [We Call It Targeted Reach]. 

* Needs to demonstrate how and why the communication has performed [We Call It Effectiveness]. 

good-luck (team digital @ Expertek US)

Digital Brand Measurement Should Be A Priority! Don't You Think?

Digital is dominating media investment. Mobile now commands above 50% (estimated) of the total global ad market greater than TV. Video continues to climb spurred on by increasing availability of screens and greater consumer access through connected TV and publisher creation of quality content. It is imperative that marketers shed light on some of the blind spots and develop an understanding of both the short and the long-term effects that digital media can deliver.

good-luck (Team Digital @ Expertek US)