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November 24, 2014 Q&A

Decoding the latest trends in digital marketing

Q&A talks about the latest ways small and midsize companies are using digital marketing with Dean Sullivan, the digital director of Glastonbury's Cashman + Katz Integrated Communications.

Q: What's the latest digital marketing trend you're recommending to small and midsize companies?

A: As with any marketing channel, companies must employ digital tactics with discipline to address their most pressing business or communications challenges.

For instance, if lead generation and nurturing is the challenge, then deployment of an automated marketing/customer relationship management (CRM) service might be the recommendation. Automated marketing/CRM tools collect customer lead information based on their Internet activity or feedback — demographics, buying habits, contact information, etc. — and then automatically executes next steps to follow up on those leads. For example, if a lead is showing buying signs, the system can automatically feed them more relevant next steps to follow through with the sale.

If reach and awareness are a company's challenge, it might be best to explore a variety of digital media options to increase engagement in and sharing of the message. Development or delivery methods include interactive video or contextual video ad targeting.

Contextual video targeting uses technology to analyze the visuals in a video to verify the context of the video. This information gives marketers the ability to more confidently serve ads to their audience. Contextual video targeting knows the difference between a video featuring Michael Jordan the NBA legend and Michael Jordan the Ohio farmer. This would be clearly advantageous to a company like Nike in serving up a sneaker ad to the right target.

Q: What trends are you seeing in terms of company spending on digital marketing/advertising vs. print?

A: The economics of business today compel companies to lean aggressively towards digital marketing/advertising spending over print or other “traditional” advertising. This is balanced by a wise perception by marketers that digital alone is not as strong as mixed channel spending.

Q: How do businesses break through the digital clutter and get their messages to reach the “right” audience?

A: Businesses break through the digital clutter to reach the “right” audience by being smart and brash. Being smart means recognizing this is marketing and your communications have a commercial purpose in the end. That means practicing marketing discipline, working hard to truly understand your audience and their online behavior, then shaping your messaging and tactics to reach them.

Once you've done the smart work — be brash. You do this by committing to share your story. Being brash drives a brand to engage audiences where they choose to congregate. When a company does this with its own voice, without pretense, it captures attention, conveys respect, earns trust, builds mindshare and wins brand awareness.

Q: Where does digital fail marketers?

A: Digital fails marketers, or more accurately marketers fail digital, when they start believing access means ownership. Digital presents more ways to approach our audience, richer ways to engage them and more powerful tools to nurture those connections. But digital also has shaped a culture that is more distracted, skeptical, and disdainful of valueless marketing intrusions. Digital does not give marketers a free pass to execute communications full of false promises, colorless commentary, characterless chatter — it must provide value to the audience. Digital fails marketers when it convinces marketers that messaging doesn't matter.

Q: What is the true promise in digital?

A: Digital's true promise is the leveling of the playing field for reach and impression. Digital gives small to midsize firms significantly greater opportunities to reach larger swaths of their most qualified targets than ever before. Marketers need to be introspective, honest and forthright on what makes them different. Digital's fragmentation of channel communications means marketers need to be more creative in what, how, where and when we sell or tell our message. 

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