For many marketers, digital marketing has quite rightly become their number one priority.
The flexibility, cost savings and relative ease of use makes it a marketing channel that is perfect for many. Quite rightly too, but what is sometimes forgotten in the use of this marketing panacea is sometimes focused too much on the technology and not enough on the best way to use it.
And in this respect digital really can learn lessons from DM.
One clear lesson is one that DM practitioners have been using for years. The well worn DM path of Test, Learn and Refine is one that fits perfectly with the benefits that digital bring. And it is a reason why many of the best digital marketers have a DM background.
Secondly, the essence of any great marketing strategy is a perfect mix of marketing channels all working in conjunction to best meet the business objectives. Digital campaigns work best when they are combined with other marketing routes. Making sure, as you would with a DM campaign, that all branding is in line and reflects the key messages you are trying to make.
Thirdly, any great DM campaign follows the Test, Learn and Refine process, but also any DM must be AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action). The beauty of digital is that it can speed up this process as feedback can be instantaneous. However, as it is so easy to do, it often becomes forgotten. Test, Learn and Refine can bring excellent results to any marketing campaign.
Creating something interesting, great design, persuasive copy and call to action are key to any effective marketing piece. Be that digital or DM, the trick is to ensure that some of those fundamental lessons that arrived before the digital era are followed through. Digital marketing is essential for all businesses. It takes customer and supplier interaction to a new level.
However, the fundamentals of great integrated marketing campaigns should not be ignored.
Showing posts with label Marketing Expert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marketing Expert. Show all posts
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Networking doesn’t have to be a Nightmare
My last two major marketing tasks couldn’t be more of a contrast; old fashioned sweets and insolvency practitioners.
It’s two ends of a very interesting scale, particularly when out at networking events. In engaging networking terms it seriously is feast or famine. One of these subjects is guaranteed to ensure you find conversations ending very quickly with nervous glances over to the coffee table (or ‘excuse table’ for many of us), whilst the other means fending off questions fired in with machine gun-like regularity (have a guess which one is which – answers on a postcard).
Neither in their own way make networking an easy ride, especially when you are trying to maintain a golden rule of the art, be interested and interesting. I love meeting new people and yet the daunting environment of a networking event still gives me jitters. This feeling isn’t helped by the contrasting challenges presented by the two subjects, either getting the nervous silence (is he going to make me insolvent) or feeling like your subject is dominating the conversation. Believe me, as strange as it sounds having the subject constantly returning to your passion isn’t as great as it sounds when you are loving finding out about others.
It is a challenge that is often replicated by clients across many industries we speak to, in areas that they see as un-interesting, unsexy and therefore un-marketable. However as we always say, nothing is un-marketable.
The key to anything like this is approaching it as you would if you were face to face with your customer. If you were to have a conversation with them what would you say? What would you want that person to take away from the 1 min conversation that you had?
For me it always boils down to a few key things. I want people to know something about me and I want to know something about them. I’d like to understand how I can help them, and I’d like to give them an idea of how I could do that.
These are the things I always keep in mind when I’m meeting new people at networking events. And they can be applied as easily to your general marketing. Take the time to understand your customers, learn things about them, help them, make their lives easier in some way and you’ll find that marketing becomes that little bit easier.
It’s two ends of a very interesting scale, particularly when out at networking events. In engaging networking terms it seriously is feast or famine. One of these subjects is guaranteed to ensure you find conversations ending very quickly with nervous glances over to the coffee table (or ‘excuse table’ for many of us), whilst the other means fending off questions fired in with machine gun-like regularity (have a guess which one is which – answers on a postcard).
Neither in their own way make networking an easy ride, especially when you are trying to maintain a golden rule of the art, be interested and interesting. I love meeting new people and yet the daunting environment of a networking event still gives me jitters. This feeling isn’t helped by the contrasting challenges presented by the two subjects, either getting the nervous silence (is he going to make me insolvent) or feeling like your subject is dominating the conversation. Believe me, as strange as it sounds having the subject constantly returning to your passion isn’t as great as it sounds when you are loving finding out about others.
It is a challenge that is often replicated by clients across many industries we speak to, in areas that they see as un-interesting, unsexy and therefore un-marketable. However as we always say, nothing is un-marketable.
The key to anything like this is approaching it as you would if you were face to face with your customer. If you were to have a conversation with them what would you say? What would you want that person to take away from the 1 min conversation that you had?
For me it always boils down to a few key things. I want people to know something about me and I want to know something about them. I’d like to understand how I can help them, and I’d like to give them an idea of how I could do that.
These are the things I always keep in mind when I’m meeting new people at networking events. And they can be applied as easily to your general marketing. Take the time to understand your customers, learn things about them, help them, make their lives easier in some way and you’ll find that marketing becomes that little bit easier.
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