What’s Working in Digital Marketing
Posted on | November 8, 2009 | No Comments
While not entirely sure what digital marketing is, I’ve just finished a very extensive read of a very good report courtesy of MarketingProfs called the Digital Marketing Factbook. At 144 pages it’s quite thorough and more importantly offers some interesting data into what online activities consumers are participating in and what online marketing initiatives are working for folks. Now, we love data and this is chock full of goodness but I’m going to break down what I see as a couple of valuable takeaways form the report.
What’s with the Face? While it appears that a lot of users have shifted the time they spend online from communication tools like email, it appears the shift has been moved over to more social platforms like Facebook. Not surprising, given Social Networking’s significant increase in popularity over the past 5 years. The graph below show the comparison between 2004 and this year.
For those who spend a lot of time online, there doesn’t seem to be too many surprises there though Search is noticeably low. The assumption is that searching is a much quicker activity. Want something, go to Search, find it.
I’ve been searching all my life – Of course, we are particularly interested in what is working for those surveyed and this is where Search shines. For many, it seems to be the core of their online marketing initiatives but of course it’s based on what has been working rather than what will be working in the future. The early days of Search saw a similar trepidation for marketers that we are seeing towards Social and once we start seeing and hearing more success stories, we’re likely to see those numbers rise from 11%.
Huh? Mobile? Another interesting (but not surprising) observation is that 11% of respondents didn’t know what was working best for them. Get your tracking and analytics in place folks. Also mobile advertising is non-existent which is again, not surprising, and I wonder if this will change in the next couple of years because those big predictions for mobile marketing over the past few years have obviously come to naught. Another victim of that fear factor that marketers are often guilty of? Or maybe it just simply doesn’t work?
Decision Engine – When making purchase decisions, we generally look at several factors. This small survey sees the value that search engines have when researching a product or service. Make sure to do your own searches to see what people are saying about you online. It makes sense to cover all of these bases…YouTube, Blogs, Ratings, Social…should all be considered when you’re looking for maximum impact online. It also helps that you offer a quality product or decent service too.
One final takeaway that is important to consider is that not everyone uses the top search engines to search, in fact sites like ebay and Craigslist get as much users searching as Ask.
If you love yourself some statistics, the Digital Marketing Factbook is worth the entry fee ($119 for members). As we have predicted for several years now, Search is a powerful ally but we’re also inclined to encourage that several elements of social media are becoming more and more essential for your Internet Marketing mix.
Cheers,
Paul
Tags: digital marketing > digital marketing factbook > marketing profs > online marketing
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