To counter some of the myths about digital marketing and communications AKQA have penned a set of principles to guide and help illuminate how to approach digital strategy. Any great and successful communication has a great and clear strategy behind it. To really exploit the digital medium it is vital to have an understanding of how to use it.

The 10 Commandments Of Digital Marketing Strategy will attempt to answer some of the thorny strategy questions facing the digital marketer...

By Saher Sidhom, AKQA

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1: FOCUS ON RESULTS

Digital has a lot to offer
The versatility of the medium is immense. It can build brands, deliver response and create continuous dialogue with audiences. Although, to really exploit digital a clear definition of marketing objectives must be articulated the role for digital within the mix will need to be outlined. Finally, as with all marketing activity, it is the return on investment that should be set from the start. This is critical as activities should build value for brands in one of two key ways equity and money. By a thorough understanding of the nature of the investment and the value it generates brands can exploit the opportunities to leverage the economic value and the brand equity of the activity.

Define objectives
Digital has, typically, been used as a direct response medium, although the attitude is shifting albeit slowly. Early adopters such as motor companies, travel and finance have used digital with objectives ranging from brand building to sampling. Motoring companies, for example, have used online films to showcase and engage with their audiences at the same time as entertaining them. BMW films will go down in history as a pioneer in this area with its selection of films (www.bmwfilms.com) showcasing the brand the site enjoyed high reach amongst BMW’s fans, but that was 6 years ago. Today brands such as Audi forsake T.V. for online launches, although pioneers in brand building are not the only ones, FMCG’s are waking up to the engagement potential, sampling and trial opportunities that their brands can offer by utilising digital.

Peperami used digital (www.goneabitnoodles.co.uk/) exceptionally well to create an engaging and motivating experience where the brand combined its subversive personality with the viral potential of the medium. The campaign extended the reach of the main campaign with upwards of half a million people viewing the virals (and topping the Sun’s viral chart). This amplified the new product launch and on hard measures the factory had to work over time to keep up with demand. Proving the combination of digital and offline is one of the most effective ways of exploiting a campaign media mix.

For any successful online campaign the success is dependant on clear objectives. Online’s ability to deliver on a variety of marketing objectives means that setting objectives should be forethought not an afterthought in planning. It really is about having a return on objective mindset not the direct response mentality built on short term ROI.

The following are some objectives which have been successfully used for digital campaigns at AKQA :

• Increase awareness: online is a high reach mass medium that has people’s attention when no other media does for example while at work during the day.

• Drive sales: it is a cost effective acquisition channel where campaigns can be optimised on the go.

• Influence purchase intent: you can distribute samples and drive sales in distribution channels for example by giving e-vouchers to be redeemed in online retailers.

• Re-evaluation: you can provide more information about the product/service/brand. Continue educating, this can be done beyond advertising on banners but by building applications, services and sites to continue brand dialogue.

• Search: Search is a key part of digital campaigns as it is usually one of the first stops for people online, you can scoop up awareness from ATL activity or other brand activity online by ensuring that people can find you when online.

• Sign-post other media: digital can continue the story online and interact with the consumers delivering greater depth for offline activities.

In order to set the right objectives brand owners need to consider the communication challenge and the opportunity for using digital and the role it plays in the marketing mix.

Define role for digital
As outlined above digital advertising is not about whether to create some banner ads or just be content with a search strategy. The portfolio of tools to engage people online is varied for example: content creation in the form of podcasting, dialogue in the form of e-mail programmes and signposting in the form of search programmes. But it is vital that a clear role for digital in the mix needs to be identified. Typically the role for digital is to support ATL campaigns but that’s just scratching the surface, digital can be used intelligently and deliver better results if its virtues are exploited.

The virtues of digital are information, interaction, dialogue, personalisation advocacy and loyalty. Some of the roles can be:

• Brands build through experience, involvement and interaction. Online is particularly good at leveraging halo effects from online brand building into response when compared to offline in some categories. For example in the automotive sector the halo effect of brand can be up to 15% increase on response:

Brand effect on sales offline:+9%
Brand effect on sales online: +15%
This is purely based on online brand advertising in the automotive category.

• Support an ATL campaign with online advertising or online experiences, some US studies show that by adding digital media effectiveness can increase by up to 35%.

• Hub an event to drive online sampling and other response based activities. The Flora Family Marathon (www.florafamilymarathon.com/) was a digital initiative that was centralised in the digital domain and delivered engagement with the brand for over four month through the sign up, training and running processes and over 100k participants.

• Capitalise on viral characteristics of the medium. A recent viral campaign for the launch of XBOX 360 (www.origenxbox360.com/) has taken the web and the gaming community by storm, where digital was the only marketing activity taking place before the actual launch. The progress of the viral effect can be demonstrated in the simple statistics: results on Google for the search terms ‘origen 360’ in the first week were 10’000, in the second week 400’000, today Google returns over 800’000 results for the same term.

• Explore the potential of e-mail: Heinz (www.Heinzoffer.com) found that redemption rates on its e-vouchers delivered via e-mail were up to 52% this is way above average for comparable offline activities.

• Reach when other media cannot reach or reach audiences that otherwise cannot be reached: Kit Kat wanted to own an online property and it did with an inspired placement in MSN’s instant messenger where it was able to reach office workers at a time when there is relevance for the brand property of breaks and where other media are not traditionally consumed. There was an un-expectedly high click through from the simple brand campaign on instant messenger which is used by some 1.5m people in the UK.

Define results
Successful online advertising campaigns have clear objectives and a well defined role for digital in the communication mix. However, it is ultimately through understanding what successes can be achieved in digital that value can be extracted from the activity, naturally this is also dependant on the initial objectives.

Digital can deliver value in two main ways:

• Brand Equity: through loyalty, advocacy & involvement
o Increased loyalty: programmes and promotions that capture data and deliver personalised dialogue.
o Advocacy: positive endorsements and viral effects can push the reputation of brands well above the effects of traditional advertising, this is pure reputation.
o Involvement: campaign sites and creative rich media formats are proven to build the experience.

• Money: through savings or the creation & acceleration of revenue streams
o Savings: digital can provide huge savings through optimising traditional advertising mixes, content creation where digital assets can be re-deployed and re-distributed, optimising campaigns through live in flight research, provide support and service applications cheaply.
o New revenue streams: digital advertising can also open up mobile content streams and revenues drive online sales and link online offers to store sales.

In summary; the principles outlined are simple but require a complete focus on the desired result. To genuinely exploit digital a clear definition of the objectives of the overall campaigns, the role of digital in the mix and true understanding of the economic and equity contribution of any marketing activity. The message is simple at this point there is a wealth of ways that digital can deliver value to brands.

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Previous articles

AKQA's Introduction to the 10 Commandments

AKQA Rundown of the 10 Commandments

About AKQA:
AKQA is a global interactive agency that uses innovative ideas and technology to deliver results for the world's leading brands. They were named Creativity Magazine's first ever Interative Agency of the Year in 2006 and have been twice recognised as 'most respected agency' by New Media Age. Their global staff of over 350 people is based in five offices across San Francisco, New York, Washington DC, London and Singapore. www.akqa.com