There are a whole raft of digital marketing techniques available today. The key is understanding which ones will be the most effective for your target audience.
The techniques you choose should be integrated into your overall marketing and communications strategy. If you don't have a clear idea of this, then take some time to study the techniques presented here.
Ultimately you may need help deciding which to use for your business, and in this case you could contact a digital marketing company that also specialises in developing strategy or contact us at Digital Markets for some free advice.
Whatever you decide to do, the proliferation of digital marketing throughout our lives is testament to its effectiveness when used correctly. So why not take advantage of the funding available and see what difference it could make to your business.
In the form of video, motion graphics or animation the placement of all of the forms either within your website or in your advertising will add a new depth e.g. simple logo animation on entry to your site or a DVD of your products shown to a queue of people at the post office.
It can be an ambient enhancement or provide a clear marketing message and now with broadband the world is your oyster. See example
A site (location) on the World Wide Web. Each website contains a homepage, which is the first document users see when they enter the site. The site might also contain additional documents and files. Each site is owned and managed by an individual, company, or organisation.
One of the single most important issues when looking at the use of digital technology for marketing is to ensure that the formats you have already or are about to develop are optimised to found by search engines, this is done by ensuring you have the right content and key words in or embedded in your site.
A diary or updated conversational topic that will usually be held on your website. These are useful for updating your user base on developments in your company, interacting with your client base and developing your brand message/ integrity. See example
Any marketing technique that induces Web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's visibility and effect. These often take the format of a funny/shocking clip of film or a game.
This form of marketing can be highly prized as it works on a friend recommendation mechanism and also allows for exponential growth for low market investment however you must ensure that the viral mirrors your company brand message and that it doesn’t degrade your market values. See our own example for Digital Markets
Games can be used as virals as detailed above. Or you can use them as a reward for completing the marketing task you require e.g. please supply us with information on our product and we will give you a free game to play etc. They can also be used effectively for interaction with your product and communicate your brand/business message in a fun manner. E.g. fish game – catch the fish in net - the more fish the greater your points – ending with a way to buy fish online through Wing of St Mawes.
Really Simple Syndication – a process whereby a user signs up to a service that provides updated information to the users desktop. Good for weather updates, news, diaries of events and special offers.
This is the technique of seeding newsgroups, social networking sites with topics and information about your company etc. This is intensive to run as you will need to monitor regularly, take care as these groups are very web savvy and will turn on anybody trying to ‘invade’ their space. Delivered in the right way these campaigns can produce high brand penetration and loyalty.
The use of 3D imagery in place of where traditionally a 2D image would be e.g. Panoramic views/ full room view in hotels. Allows the user to interact and pull the image around makes the experience personal/hand on.
These are the strip advertisements at the top of most large websites. They are generally 468 x 60 pixels in size and provide a good platform to get a message out quickly to a large audience. At their best they have a good call to action and use moving image to grab attention. See example
These are the more intrusive forms of advertising available online, the boxes that appear over the site you are looking at or the characters that jump all over your screen. These are high impact and work very well for campaigns that are launching new products. Be aware you must know who you are targeting and what they like prior to developing these in order for them to have a positive outcome.
These can be in the form or audio or video or live feeds. Live feeds can be a simple view from your hotel or can be a rock concert which you charge and entry fee to watch.
Using mobile communications to carry out marketing campaigns and the use of text messaging via a mobile telephone or hand held device.