What is Digital Marketing: Channels Usage or Channels Optimization?

What is digital marketing? Most definitions portray digital marketing as activities that use digital channels such as Internet, mobile networks, or “other interactive channels” to promote, market or sell products, brands, ideas etc.

Based on my experience as a web marketer who in the past year  underwent re-labeling as a digital marketer there are two aspects to digital marketing.

1. Digital channels integration:
Digital channels integration has to do with the channels’ usage that most definitions mention. It takes having and integrating the channels with each other to pave the road for conversation through these channels.

A few questions can help identify if your digital channels are ready to be used to their full potential:

A. Is my website the central hub for other digital channels I may use? If you have YouTube video, Twitter and Facebook links, email capture tools, Flickr tools, RSS tools, SMS tools, real-time reviews, etc you are well on your way to digital channel integration.

B. Do the digital channels I am using talk to each other and my website? You don’t have to have connections to all that’s hip out there. But if you are to use multiple digital channels for marketing they must be integrated in a way that will allow you to maintain fluid conversations through these channels and then move from social conversation to action (what some call goal conversion).

Here is an example of disjointed conversation resulting from lack of channel integration. One of my most favorite comedians posts different updates for each Twitter and Facebook. Neither lead to his website. As a result there are conversations happening in parallel in the twitterverse and on Facebook. Unless this is done as a test for which channel or post performs better this technique is at best just conversation that takes double the work to conduct.

C. Did you forget email marketing? There has been much talk of social marketing recently to where resources that could be used to enhance existing channels such as email tools are going to integrating new channels. Us marketers still exert most control over email marketing so let’s not throw the baby out with the water.

D. Are you ready to assign resources, be they employees or consultants to maintaining the digital conversation for your business? There was a time when many thought web marketing was the magic wand, later on many thought anyone could do email marketing and I know today twittering is a mighty tempting proposition. An individual may get hundreds of emails and hundreds of tweets a day, so consider the level of conversation that a business could follow and conduct. It may take hours a day which may be an investment that cannot be ignored.

2. Marketing via digital channels has to do with evolving beyond mere usage of digital channels from conversation to optimizing usage of these channels.

Here are a few questions that can help identify if your marketing has moved from channel usage to channel optimization:

A. Is your usage of social media an end goal in itself? Twittering just for the heck of it is starting to go against the self-imposed rules of the twitterverse. The “content is king” rule of web marketing extends to tweets, facebook posts, Flickr pictures, the blogosphere and so on. It’s about delivering an answer to the “why would I, as a consumer, care about what you’re saying?” question.

B. Are you just using these channels or are you using them in the best manner suited to help the goals of your business? Here is a great example of a business that waited to find the right time, the right angle and the staff to carry their digital conversation:

On April 4, 2007 Wells Fargo posted their first tweet

@WellsFargo

This was followed by a 16-month silence until Aug. 14, 2008, “Got a mention on FaceReviews today. Not so nice. But hey, we are listening, just not quite ready to join in. We want to do it right!” On May 26, 2009 Wells Fargo does do it right. They figure out that the most useful conversation to their customers and their business is customer service related. So they start fresh with

@Ask_WellsFargo

. UPDATE: as of Dec 2014, this channel continues to be active as a customer service channel.

There is a world of opportunities out there for digital marketing. Web and email marketing are still solid players, and the new players such as twitter, facebook and others are joining the team. Whichever combination of tools we choose for our businesses it is how we use them to meet our goals that will ultimately drive our success.