10 Things to ensure the success of your
Digital Marketing Communication

Digital media has been ‘the brave new world’ for the longest time. Understanding this ‘new landscape’ is extremely important. Why? Well quite simply, because for the first time in the history of marketing, an even playing field has been created, where suddenly, how much money you can pump in, into ridiculous and often times over the top television and print campaigns, doesn’t really matter. Digital media is here and now, real time and instantly gratifying, but that being said, it has immediate, lasting and often times damning repercussions. So how do you plan for a successful digital media campaign? For starters here are 10 things to ensure the success of your Digital Marketing Communication.

1. Don’t ever lack clear objectives

Like everything in life that is worth doing, is worth doing properly, from the BASICS. Even digital media campaigns need to be planned clearly, with well defined objectives. At the very heart of it, your analytics goals must be at the heart of everything. Remember everything you put out there as a part of the digital media plan, has a ripple effect that can be tracked (unlike newspaper or TV ads) and therefore can be easily tracked and dissected (for greater learning, or to rip your logic to shreds). So before you put anything out there, make sure its a part of a plan, and is meant to achieve something.

2. Make sure that your targeting is pitch perfect

Now that you have a sound enough strategy in mind, the next variable to tackle is targeting. Without the proper targeting, even superb, easy to consume content is going to miss the mark. So if you have a great idea, a fantastic message and the right medium to deliver it on, take the extra effort to ensure that you target it to the right audience, remember classically trained media planners (in mainline agencies) in top media agencies didn’t have the tools to do this, and had to rely on market research, TRPs and other skulduggery to come up with a ‘hypothetical audience picture’. As digital marketers this is the one thing we have easier. Trust us!

3. Give the consumer what they want to consume

Put your preconceived notions aside (some of us have had to, the hard way). Study consumer trends, tailor your content keeping the consumer in mind. Remember there are millions of other digital media campaigns running parallely, competing for the consumer’s mind space. So if you don’t give the consumer content they want to consume, or interact with, they are NOT going to consume or interact with it. Also remember to keep content relevant. Consumer-centric, and relevance are the two most important things you need to remember.

4. Do not come across as preachy or condescending

Tonality or how you say, what you’re saying is extremely important. Suggestive is good, blatant will get you in trouble. Preachiness will lead to your brand’s story coming across as an old-timer. Condescension, will alienate target audiences. So when writing, producing and presenting the content you plan to put out, always ask yourself one question, “how does this read (sound, look)?”

5. Ignore mobile at your own peril

In years gone by, digital media was looked upon as ’emerging media’ and the internet was littered with atrocious fliers (remnants of unappreciated mainline ideas). As digital media becomes more mainstream, there is the danger that this is going to happen to mobile. By most stats, mobile is the wave of the near future. Neglecting it is a mistake that we as marketers cannot afford. In fact it would really serve us well try to come up with ideas that are led by mobile. After all with the computing power in modern smartphones, imagine the efficacy of a campaign that were right there, playing on a consumer’s screen, including them, absorbing them completely.

6. Don’t call click baits ‘cheap tricks’

Another thing some of us have had to learn the hard way. Click baits are an extremely interesting topic that I will tackle some other time, but safe to say, it isn’t to be discounted. Click bait headlines unabashedly bring a piece of content to the immediate attention of the consumer, thereby increasing the odds of his/her interacting with it. Click baits can sound shocking, amusing and bizarre, but writing can be difficult AF, so to any budding copywriter, I have one piece of advice, practice, practice and practice, until even the prelude to your sleeping dreams are click baity!

7. Be social on social media

Remember that social media is about being open to feedback and nurturing a healthy discussion and even a debate or two at times. So when conceptualizing your campaign, keep it open ended and encourage responsiveness. Also never forget that the true measure of efficacy of a piece of content isn’t the number of likes it garners, but the quantum of conversation it encourages. So aim for comments with calls to action that are simple. Never underestimate the value of a call out like, “tell us what you think”, “reply in the comments below”. Always remember to answer comments and include people’s opinions, it gives your campaign both credibility and a sense of openness.

8. Sales orientation and keeping in touch with the marketing team

Remember that as a digital marketer there are only these many things you can do. This is where your clients’ marketing teams involvement becomes critical. During the planning stage, involving them in an open conversation regarding their objectives and expectations will enable you to craft your messaging that much better. During the campaign, any and all inquiries relating to the product, service or offer need to be routed to the relevant marketing resource and keeping the channels of communication open with them becomes even more critical.

9. Using quality images

Digital campaigns need to look and read amazing. So using quality resources, especially of the visual variety are of critical importance. Seeing is believing and I cannot stress the importance of this enough.

10. Have fun with it

Last and certainly not the least, have fun with whatever you do on digital media. The first rule of advertising holds true here, “tell a story, because nobody tunes in to watch an ad!” Keep the tone of your communication light (or thought provoking if the situation calls for it.) and make it look good, let your designers and writers have some fun with it. You’ll find that it comes out a whole lot better and brighter when the people who are invested in it, are having fun with it.

Creating great content is one of the most effective ways of running a great digital media campaign, but without the other elements, it can run the danger of missing the mark. A truly great digital campaign is the coming together of all these elements and therefore these are the things that we @ Beard Bros recommend!