© Courtesy of The Manila TimesGet ready for the next level of evolution
Given the technological capabilities available, part of the transformation of many business processes in an organization is in advertising and marketing. Most customers immerse themselves in digital behavior in many aspects of their daily lives, and organizations plan to include the same digital inclusion in their processes and operations to reach their target customers.
Advertising and marketing communications are no exception, and in fact can be considered one of the most important areas in which companies can focus their digital efforts. One of the common frameworks seen at the macro level is integrated digital marketing, a popular strategy chosen by organizations to complement and support traditional marketing efforts in an effort to keep pace with changing times.
But what is digital marketing? To understand digital marketing and its impact on business, it's important to examine six components and which organizations spend time and resources on developing a comprehensive digital marketing plan:
1. Goals - Efforts that require an understanding of the organization and its direction to move forward. Is the strategy being formulated and implemented? Do we have an executive sponsor in executing the strategy to achieve the goal? What is the main goal of your campaign? Is it to get more customers, identify more prospects or increase brand awareness? Knowing what the goal is helps to focus efforts to achieve the goal.
2. Audience - In short, who is your target customer and what are their demographics? Are you targeting a specific geographic area or age group to promote your product or service? It may sound simple, but the work needs to be done from the start, such as conducting personality research, conducting empathy interviews, mapping customer journey experiences, and implementing usage, attitude, and engagement studies.
3. Messaging – An essential part of any digital marketing campaign, messaging treats the value proposition as the core message, along with calls to action. What makes your product or service unique enough to attract your target market? What makes you different from other people? Your post should contain that.
4. Channels - How will you deliver your message and manage your campaign? Which channel do you use? There are many ways to reach your target customers such as hosting events, doing public relations (PR) projects, using social media and promoting or using your website. .
5. Content – This is how you work in a message to share relevant information to create content that compels your target customers to stop, look and listen. Content can be created in many ways such as images, video, audio and text. Videos are a must as they are short and can grab the attention of the audience in a short time.
6. Monitoring – measure key metrics and analyze what is working well and what is not and feed into the iteration. This can be done by monitoring the channels they use, such as social media.
Now that we understand integrated digital marketing, it is important to look at the channels through which you can start your digital marketing campaign. This is called an integrated marketing communication channel. There are seven channels for organizations to evaluate and consider:
- Advertisements
- Private sale
- Digital advertising
- Direct marketing
- Public relations and advertising
- events and experiences
- Sales promotion
Out of the seven channels offered, the three main areas we cover are digital marketing, public relations and events and experiences. This is an area that most companies in the country are interested in and are investing time and resources into.
Digital advertising
Especially during the pandemic, the use of digital marketing is growing exponentially. While traditional media has always been successful in markets like the Philippines, digital marketing is gaining momentum as customers go digital. This is why organizations are considering digital marketing in their overall marketing efforts: it's also faster execution and faster results because access to information is usually at your fingertips.
Digital marketing requires setting goals and identifying the platforms you can use, whether it's your website, social media platforms or search engines. It's also equally important to track results and ensure that repeats are flexible and responsive to campaign results. A campaign may work effectively on one platform, but not in the same way on another, and it is important to monitor this so that businesses can be agile and adapt accordingly.
MSMEs or micro, small and medium businesses may find digital marketing intimidating, especially if the business owner is from an older generation. To simplify things, digital marketing uses the power of the Internet to promote products and services. In other words, using Facebook or Instagram or a website has a lot to do with digital marketing. This is a good starting point.
Public relations and advertising
Being "top of mind" is always the goal of companies promoting their products and services. One of the ways to do this is to be visible and this is where public relations can come into play. Public relations includes thought leadership, informants, and interviews (both digital and print) with the goal of reaching and increasing brand awareness. It is also important to consider the different social media tools available based on the type of audience you are targeting. It's also important to think about how different generations prefer different platforms, making short video content on TikTok and Facebook Reels a marketing exercise to target young people through new channels.
events and experiences
Filipinos are very friendly people. Activities such as events where people gather are always reserved and acceptable, and digital events are no exception. When planning such an event, it is important to be able to (a) organize, (b) invite an audience, (c) execute, (d) monitor, and (e) be able to work from start to finish throughout the organization's life cycle. Finish it. dead end. . an event
In the era of the pandemic, we have seen for some time how businesses are choosing virtual things over face-to-face meetings - we have seen product or service launches and webinars that take place on online platforms and also streamed online. Greater accessibility. This arrangement has led to the adoption of virtual events, or at least options other than face-to-face. However, this poses a challenge for marketers as they now have to consider the engagement threshold, the point at which audience engagement continues and falls below. Obviously, the probability of face-to-face contact is high, but the virtual is low. This means marketers should use videos when setting up events like polls, frequent slide transitions, and virtual events. This keeps the audience engaged and focused, making the activity successful.
Final thoughts
A question that often comes up is, "Which area should I focus on? Traditional or digital?" Our answers always consider hybrid approaches and find a good balance between offline and online marketing efforts to measure the effectiveness of each approach based on the target audience. As a marketer, there is only one way to find out and that is to try both options and respond based on the tracking results. At this time, companies and organizations must use the technological capabilities to be flexible when they want to capture the target audience.
As such, organizations can consider it as part of their marketing efforts for 2023.
Kay Calpo Lugtu is COO of Hungry Workhorse, a digital and culture transformation company. His advocacy includes food innovation, nation building and sustainability. The author can be reached at kay.lugtu@hungryworkhorse.com.