Digital Marketing Explained — In the Age of MarTech

The Future of Digital Marketing is Different than You Think

In the digital age, where we are constantly inundated with new technology and processes. It can be difficult to keep up with what’s cool and what’s not. Digital marketing is one of those things that everyone is trying to do but not many people really understand it. In this article we’ll explain how digital marketing works and why it’s so important for your business or brand, plus some insights from a cross-cultural perspective to get you started on the trend of MarTech ( Marketing + Technology).

*The content is shared by Touchpoint CC as part of the Digital boost workshop, hosted by EMA.

What is digital marketing?

Marketing has always been about connecting with your audience in the right place and at the right time.Digital marketing is a form of marketing that uses the internet and other forms of electronic media to drive traffic to websites, content, and products. It includes email marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), social media, display advertising, and mobile advertising.

Digital marketing v.s. traditional marketing

Digital marketing is a different beast from traditional marketing. It’s less centralised, more decentralised. The essence of traditional marketing is to occupy minds and shelves, but for digital marketing, it’s all about people, and reaching multiple touchpoints.

While you can measure the delivery of traditional marketing media, digital marketing allows for better measurement of everything from clicks to conversions. As a result, you’re able to see exactly what’s working and what isn’t—and make adjustments accordingly.

In traditional marketing, there are only so many ways to reach your audience: TV ads, radio spots, billboards on the highway… but in digital marketing, those channels are multiplied by the number of devices that people use every day (smartphones, computers, tablets).

Digital marketers don’t just have access to these channels—they also have access to data about how users interact with them. This means they can tailor their content more effectively than ever before!

Traditional marketers use separate channels for different kinds of content; digital marketers use one platform to create both paid and unpaid content that can be shared across multiple channels at once (like Facebook or Twitter). This means that all of their efforts are related in some way—which saves time and money!

How to Do Digital Marketing

 Here is a framework that gives you an overview of the strategy.

1. Define your goals.
2. Identify your target audience.
3. Establish a budget for each digital channel.
4. Strike a good balance between paid and free digital strategies.
5. Create engaging content.
6. Optimise your digital assets for different digital channels
7. Iterate based on the analytics you measure

Digital marketing is all about identifying the right audience and then giving them what they want. In order to do this, you need to define the problem before you start on a possible solution. For example, It’s important that before starting any digital marketing campaign with an aim of reaching your target audience through different channels such as social media or search engine optimisation (SEO), you should have first set goals so that you know where exactly you want your business or product/service offerings reach at the end of any campaign at hand.

A lot of NZ companies have been using marketing automation which centred around emails for years, but the Chinese market has a few unique characteristics that make it different.

A heads up to digital marketers or brands – in China, email is not the most effective way to reach consumers. The opening rate of emails may only have a probability of a few ten thousandths.On the other hand, with the advent of the social media era, the opening rate of social applications such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin and Little Red Book has exceeded 50%. Therefore, for the Chinese market, the biggest difference between marketing automation and European and American countries is that social channels are emphasised over reachability.

Digital Marketing Tools

 As you know, digital marketing is all about the tools. And there are so many of them! It can be overwhelming trying to figure out which ones you need and how they work together. Here’s a handy list of some of the most popular ones:

• Google Analytics – This is a free tool that gives you insights into your website traffic and provides suggestions on how to improve it. It lets you see who visits your site, where they come from (e.g., search engines or social media), what pages people look at first on your site, how long they stay on each page, etc—all very helpful information for analysing your marketing campaigns. Plus it’s easy to set up!
• Hubspot – This is an all-in-one platform that helps businesses create email marketing campaigns, social media posts and landing pages all in one place. It’s also good for managing customer service issues and keeping track of leads that aren’t ready yet but might become sales-ready in the future (if not right away). They even have a plug-in to tailor brands’ needs for Chinese social media sites such as WeChat.
• Canva– Canva is an online graphic design tool that lets you create engaging visuals by dragging and dropping images, text, and shapes. It’s a great tool for creating graphics for social media posts or website content and it has thousands of templates for easy use. It provides brands who have limited design resources an accessible way to create visual contents. However, the downside is that many other brands may use the same template as you do.

We understand the pain!

We are now offering the ‘brand kit solutions’ for companies who want to excel on their social visuals. Our experienced designers are here to help you create bespoke brand templates (PPT, poster, social posts and more) on Canva and you can fill the  blank yourself. Easy and cost effective!

If you haven’t used Canva before, don’t worry! Touchpoint CC gets a 75 days free pro trial for you.

When it comes to implementing digital marketing, there are two main ways you can go: in-house or outsourcing.

In house means you hire a team of people to handle all your digital marketing needs. This can be great because it’s cost effective and allows for complete control over the process. However, if you have a limited budget or don’t have time on your hands then an alternative would be outsourcing this part of your business.

Outsourcing gives you access to professional services at a reasonable price while saving time and resources that could then be used elsewhere in your business model.

If you are not sure, talk to us now. There will always be a solution for you!