Guest blog by Digital Marketing Specialist, Justin Hooker
Digital can be such an ambiguous word. What does it even mean?
“Oh, Digital Communications… What’s that again?” I vividly remember when all the parents of my college friends asked me that around the time I was graduating from undergrad. My default response was usually something along the lines of, “It covers any type of communication you do online or on a device.” That usually ended the conversation. That’s right…
As true as that definition is, there is so much more to what really goes into digital marketing and digital presence for businesses. One of the big players in the digital marketing and sales arena, Hubspot, defines it this way,
“Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers.”
So, my adolescent, quick answer to my friends’ parents wasn’t too far off. However, with some agency experience under my belt, I now understand how vast and endless digital marketing really is. Think of everything (yes, everything) you do on your phone, computer, TV, car (depending on features), smart home devices, etc. They all are marketing to you and pulling information from you. Every interaction you have with those technologies is tracked and used in one way or another. With the monetization of nearly everything online, companies have to get sneaky with how they market and use your data.
A Tragedy
Remember MoviePass? RIP. I miss you every day that goes by, MoviePass. It offered an all-you-can-watch membership for moviegoers for $10 a month. How is that even possible? Well, they sold data to companies like Uber, nearby restaurants, and other services near movie theaters. They dropped their monthly fee from $50 to $10 and increased their user base by over a million in 3 months. It also arguably improved the user experience because Ubers were arriving faster and users were seeing relevant ads. All without impacting the end-user.
“MoviePass would know what types of people liked which movies, when they went to see them, and how to better target them with advertising or provide other services outside the theater.”
Ultimately, MoviePass failed, but they did a lot of things right in the beginning to shake up the film industry. What took them to the next level and resulted in their massive increase of users was data collection, which is ultimately the greatest benefit of digital marketing.
Everything is Trackable
Here are some examples of what data can be deductively collected
- Everywhere your phone has been
- How long your commute to work typically takes
- What time you usually leave work
- How long people visit a specific website
- The pages and accounts you interact with most on social media
- Whether or not you opened or clicked an email
- What songs and shows you listen and watch the most
- When you typically buy groceries
The list goes on.
Tech companies have gotten really good at collecting data and providing (some of) it to the users. That is part of the reason why software developers are one of the highest paying job titles.
User behavior can shed a lot of light on a person’s buying habits and patterns. The benefit of implementing digital marketing is that you can monitor and see what people are doing before they purchase your product or come in contact with your brand. It’s like having an inside scoop on how to best sell and market to your prospective customers and keep your current ones.
So, What Does A Digital Marketing Agency Do?
The benefit of a digital marketing agency is that they know how to interpret that data and have the resources to do something about it. There are so many little things that compound on top of each other that optimize the buying experience for consumers. Whether it is how to write you blog posts or increase your social media presence, what keywords you should be focusing on to increase your SEO, the UX/UI design of a website, or where to put your call to action in a video or podcast, an agency is aware of what the data is saying and how to adapt to it.
It is our job to stay on top of trends, scientific studies, and consumer behavior and implement our findings to make the best results for our clients. Data collection and implementation is the name of the game and unless you are spending time in the marketing industry, it can be hard to stay on top of it all. So don’t rule out an agency partnership. Odds are you’ll get a lot more firepower for less than a full-time internal staff member.
As one of the oldest Marketing Agencies in Tacoma, we have had to adapt to new technologies and implement them for ourselves and our clients. While digital marketing is quickly becoming a mainstream tool, there are other marketing to consider as well. Additional to digital marketing, we specialize in cloud-based digital print + direct mail, extensive marketing strategy, and creative direction and website design and development. Check out all our solutions here.
If you have any questions or are looking for a marketing partnership, reach out. We would love to get to know your business and how we can build each other up together.
