eMarketing still faces a few critics and challenges in that place we at the QuirkStation like to call – the outside world. We realise that not everybody has a forward thinking boss who’s willing to listen to new ideas (I have faced this problem; Rob is yet to introduce “bring Kat a bag of money” Fridays). I thought some insight here would come from the people in the trenches – digital strategists tasked with getting non-geeks (gasp) to implement online tactics. I was interested in learning what should go into every eMarketing strategy proposal, what challenges are faced and what works best when it comes to convincing your boss/superior/colleague.
I learned that there are a number of things you have to consider when you are convinced an eMarketing strategy is the right way to go:
- While not true as a rule, people sometimes prefer to stick to the things they are comfortable with. “The concerns I faced were when people hadn’t done things this way before and know about Social Media and digital but not as a marketing tool” – Lisa Steingold, National Marketing Manager at Vega: The Brand Communications School.
- Know How your eMarketing objectives meet the overall objectives. Robert Keip, the CEO of Premier Banking at FNB (who is the man that needs to be convinced) says he has seldom said no to an idea. He does need to know however, what “the amount of money involved is and if there is enough business opportunity…I want to know the how and the why”.
- How your chosen tactics meets specific goals. As Andy Hadfield, The Internet and Social Media Guy, Personal Banking at FNB pointed out, “Not every idea is good for every digital marketing client, that’s where some go wrong because they believe a blog is a solution to everyone’s problems”.
- How you will be measuring the success of your campaigns. “A good idea is to start thinking about your cost per acquisition, for example how much is a name and number on a database worth” - Scott Gray, the Interactive Marketing Manager at BMW South Africa.
- A solid agreement on what needs to be achieved. “If your campaign works you’re likely to get an increase in budget, as long as you can show that you have achieved positive results” - Colson Mothoagae, who is an Online Specialist in Sales and Marketing at Absa.
Andy Hadfield and Robert Keip of FNB.
It’s worth noting that those I interviewed had varying experiences depending on the team structure they find themselves in. The earlier the geek gets involved, the easier it is to integrate the relevant tactic into a strategy. “You’ve got to have that pool of knowledge from the start”, says Andy. While this is most likely not up to the strategist at the bottom, it’s clearly something to fight for. To do so you need to prove the value of online marketing – it’s all about the return on investment.
As you can see from the above points, measurement plays a huge role in demonstrating the value of eMarketing. As Andy shared with me, it’s all about “statistics, statistics, statistics – measure it and prove that it works”. There are a few ways to get your hands on useful figures before getting a buy in for a major campaign.
Scott Gray, BMW.
Scott Gray of BMW suggests that you implement Google Analytics and other measurement tools on your existing website and campaign right now. “Start getting something in place, get data and mine it,” it costs nothing but your time and will arm you with the ammo you need to tweak campaigns and measure or prove that they are effective.
It’s also worth convincing the relevant person to let you run a smaller pilot campaign. If successful, you can use this as a way to gain further investment because you’ll be able to measure everything from the launch to click throughs and conversions. When he ran the website URL at the end of a BMW TV advert, for example, Scott could justify using those last few seconds by reporting on exactly how much the website traffic went up during that period. This also achieved two things – it proved the efficacy of the TV advert and the way in which an online campaign can work with offline.
Pilots have worked for Andy as well. The risk vs. reward ratio of a smaller Facebook campaign has worked in FNB’s favour in the South African context. “The amount of South African’s actually engaging in Social Media is small, which provides you with a training ground in which you can bump your head.”
Colson Mothoagae, Absa.
Colson from Absa points out, however, that while the numbers are your greatest asset they can sometimes also “shoot you in the foot”.
While metrics in a traditional offline media campaign are often a “thumb suck”, digital techniques are measured down to specific numbers. We’re not measuring how many people we suspect saw a PPC advert for example, but rather how many clicked through to a sale or whatever the conversion goal may be – this makes the numbers far more specific.
“You can break it down. Someone may look at that kind of report and say ‘this didn’t work' because they don’t realise that on display ads, a 0.35% click through rate is currently the industry standard”.
This is why Colson re-iterated that it is important to ensure that “the objectives are outlined and that you agree on them,” and that you educate your colleagues as much as possible about the specifics of online tactics in an ongoing way.
Lisa Steingold, marketing manager at Vega, describes her colleagues as being open and enthusiastic about digital tactics, but also said that she approaches the integration of digital tactics with “change management” in mind.
Lisa Steingold, Vega.
“You have to look in terms of how to use things rather than them just being cool channels,” which is why she’s instituted ongoing internal training with tools like their mobile marketing system and has set up a monthly marketing forum. “Every opportunity I get I show them what we’ve done and how it’s working”.
Scott Gray makes sure to share online ideas whenever he gets the chance. “I try and present to people as often as possible, even if it’s just a viral video or showing them how Twitter works.” In this way he can make reference to tactics later and sneakily go about educating his colleagues. “Half my job is about experimentation”.
When it came to the big question – how much budget each strategist is allocated for online campaigns – the answers varied greatly from 50% to depending on a campaign by campaign basis. The fact that you can run a month long PPC campaign for the same amount it would take to run an advert in a newspaper for one weekend certainly counts in eMarketing’s favour, said Colson. You should certainly point out that you can do far more with less.
Did you enjoy this interview? Why not check out:
Muti
It is really positive to see the Corporate getting behind e-Marketing. The traditional battle of selling the online medium vs the traditional marketing medium is ongoing. Keep it up! With this kind of input and evangelists, e-Marketing can only grow from strength to strength.
Posted by Mafalda Snyders on 2009/05/22