​​Digital marketing is a marketing activity that utilizes digital technology. While crossing online customers’ contact points such as web advertisements, websites, SNS, email magazines, and white papers, and offline customers’ contact points such as media advertisements, exhibitions, direct mail (DM), seminars, and business negotiations, It refers to the digital management of marketing activities that cover a series of purchasing phases such as business negotiations and customer pursuits, as well as customer behavior during that period. Digital marketing is becoming an essential measure for companies these days.

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is marketing activities that utilize digital technology.

We conduct marketing using various digital media such as websites, SNS, YouTube, and apps, as well as digital devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Digital marketing is not limited to PR and advertising of products and services. It also includes analyzing the collected customer data, approaching them in a timely manner, reviewing issues, and analyzing planning, and strategies using digital technology.

All marketing methods that use digital technology are called “digital marketing.”

The difference between digital marketing and web marketing

Digital marketing is the promotion of products and services through various digital media such as the Internet, email, and mobile apps.

Many people think that digital marketing is the same as web marketing, but strictly speaking, the concepts are different.

Web marketing is marketing that targets the web, such as websites (corporate sites, service sites, EC sites, narrowly defined landing pages (LP), etc.), web advertisements, and web services.

On the other hand, digital marketing encompasses the domain of web marketing while also connecting and managing all outbound activities such as exhibitions and business negotiations.

For example, there is a method of linking customer data and behavior data and utilizing individual logs, and ” One to One Marketing” performs the optimal action for each customer based on the collected information. The concept is also included in digital marketing.

In other words, it is a broader concept than web marketing and is a marketing method that can be used by any company regardless of industry or business type.

And marketing automation (MA) is one of the measures of digital marketing.

Reference article: [promote vrdm]What is web marketing? Easy-to-understand explanations of basic knowledge, how to get started, and measures and examples that should be practiced!

Why Digital Marketing Matters Now

Search for products and services on the website and apply instantly from there. This is a common flow for consumer-oriented businesses (BtoC) such as E-commerce sites, but in corporate businesses (BtoB), the normal flow is to find it by searching and then touching and comparing various media.

For example, you can have people who exchange business cards at an exhibition browse your website. Prospective customers who have visited many times will be sent emails about the seminar to deepen their understanding, and if they answer ” I’m considering it” in the questionnaire after the seminar, it will develop into a free consultation and business negotiations. And, while it touches a number of media, it eventually leads to business negotiations.

During this period, it is necessary to take measures such as deciding what kind of media to use to create contact points in order to connect with prospective customers. The issues are in the marketing activities of the company.

In digital marketing, it is possible to cultivate prospective customers who have been attracted by various measures such as web promotions and exhibitions, while managing and analyzing individual logs, and finally grasping”what kind of effect was produced.”

In addition, it can be said that the ideal form of digital marketing is to maximize your company’s sales by operating a process that looks at all marketing measures and turns the PDCA cycle.

When we hear the word “digital marketing,” we tend to imagine that all marketing is completed digitally. Digital marketing is the creation of a system that covers everything from upstream to downstream and ultimately allows you to sell products and services without having to engage in sales activities.

Digital marketing concepts and ideas

Advances in digital technologies such as POS registers and IoT have made it possible to understand customer behavior offline. Furthermore, the idea is to use BI (business intelligence) and AI (artificial intelligence) to analyze the huge amount of data that is generated and accumulated offline and use it for marketing.

In addition, digital tools are used to measure the effectiveness of marketing activities.

As a result, we have been able to speed up aggregation and analysis, and the speed of repeating improvements through the PDCA cycle has improved dramatically.

Basic digital marketing techniques

As I have told you so far, the scope of digital marketing is wide and includes marketing measures in various offline and online channels. We will pick out the main ones from among them and introduce them.

Web advertising

Web advertising, also known as Internet advertising, online advertising, or digital advertising, refers to advertising displayed on websites, emails, etc.

Types of web advertisements include listing advertisements, pure advertisements, ad networks, DSPs, affiliate advertisements, native advertisements, SNS advertisements, video advertisements, and email advertisements.

The features (advantages) of web advertising are that it is possible to specify users with attributes similar to the target demographic at the time of posting and that after the advertisement is displayed, it is possible to obtain data such as user clicks.

This data can be used to measure effectiveness, determine ROI (return on investment), and allocate an appropriate marketing budget.

Website operation

Websites have become an inseparable part of business, to the extent that almost no company has a website today.

Even if you say “website operation” in a nutshell, the operation method differs depending on the type and purpose of the website.

For E-commerce sites, the goal is to get customers to purchase, and for service sites, the goal is to request materials and make inquiries. For corporate sites, the goal is to improve branding and recognition.

However, one thing that can be said in common is that after creating a website, if it is left unattended without being operated, it will not produce any effect. It is important to appoint a person in charge of the website and operating it.

Websites also serve as hubs for other online measures such as web advertisements, SNS, and email marketing, as well as offline measures such as exhibitions and seminars, and are the cornerstone of digital marketing.

Exhibition

The exhibition itself is an offline measure, but the business card information of the leads acquired at the exhibition is input into the MA tool, and email marketing is used to nurture the leads who did not immediately lead to business negotiations. Follow the movement on the site and eventually lead to business negotiations.

 Reference material: 12 techniques to maximize the effects of exhibitions

You can ensure continuous contact by connecting leads online, which tend to be neglected and dormant if they remain offline.

Email marketing

E-marketing is marketing that encourages leads to take action using email.

Email marketing includes step emails, targeting emails (segment emails), and dormant discovery emails, all of which can be used as lead nurturing methods.

In addition to having people register their email addresses on websites, we often distribute information based on lead information obtained offline, such as at exhibitions, seminars, and business card exchanges.

By using tools with mail delivery functions, such as MA tools, you can streamline your delivery work and easily measure the effects.

Seminar

Holding seminars is effective as an offline measure for training activities.

In addition to being able to obtain your name, company name, and email address when you apply for participation, it is possible to grasp the details of your interest by conducting a questionnaire after the event, making it easier to approach sales.

As with the exhibition, let’s register the participant information in MA tools, etc., conduct nurturing, and connect it to business negotiations.

Depending on the theme of the seminar, there are many leads who are at a higher stage of consideration than leads who contact exhibitions, and the training period tends to be shorter.

White paper

A white paper is a marketing measure that summarizes information that leads want, such as product information and company know-how, and publishes it on a website.

In general, website conversions are often set to “inquiries” and “request for quotation”, but even if it doesn’t go that far, it is necessary to set up “conversion” in order not to miss leads that are even more or less interested. You may want to set the whitepaper download as “intermediate conversion”.

If you prepare multiple white papers according to the lead consideration stage and register scenarios in the MA tool such as “Send this email to leads who have downloaded this white paper” and “Sales will approach you by phone,” you can make the process more efficient.

What are KPI and KGI?

KGI (Key Goal Indicator) (Key Goal Indicator)

A KGI, or “Key Goal Indicator,” is a metric used to determine if a critical, long-term business goal has been reached. A KGI is a particular numerical value that can be used to objectively determine whether or not a goal has been met.

Instead of “grow sales,” you may set the KGI to “earn $100,000 USD in sales revenue in 6 months.” Instead of merely attempting to “raise customer happiness,” you could strive to “get an 85% satisfaction percentage based on an email poll of current clients.” Clarify your goal with an exact figure of what you want to attain and set a timeframe for yourself to reach it.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator) (Key Performance Indicator)

Following that, a KPI, or “Key Performance Indicator,” indicates how effective your existing approaches are in moving you closer to your ultimate goal. These are the goals for each stage of the process leading up to the KGI. By calculating backward from the final goal, you can determine what stages to take and accurately define your KPIs. Ascertain that your KPIs are closely related to the KGI and that you will reach your KGI as a result of satisfying all of your smaller KPIs. If you fulfill all of your KPIs but still haven’t reached your final target, you may need to go back and reset your measurements.

Tips for Choosing the Best KGI and KPI Goals

1. Always set a measurable goal.
   
   • A common error is to set the KGI to anything ambiguous, such as “boost sales.” However, you must always establish how much you want to raise your sales in order to have a clear target to shoot for. The entire purpose of KGI and KPI is to have a metre to evaluate your achievement in connection to your goals, so let’s set them with specific quantities and timeframes to make this achievable.
2. Don’t break down your KGI into too many KPIs.
   • When you establish too many KPIs, the entire process becomes too cumbersome, and you won’t be able to keep track of all of the indicators adequately. Set a sufficient amount of KPIs so that you may check them on a daily basis without becoming overwhelmed.
   • Follow one of the logical thinking principles, MECE, which stands for “Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive,” when creating your KPI tree. This means you must ensure that none of your KPIs overlaps, so that no information is tracked twice, but you must also ensure that no crucial data is omitted, so include all of the essential areas that contribute to the final KGI.
3. The two should have a cause-and-effect relationship.
   
   • Every level of KPIs in the KPI tree should be connected to the next in a casual way. For example, if a smartphone app vendor’s ultimate goal is to increase retention, a suitable KPI would be the login rate or the number of shares.

The tools you need for digital marketing

Digital marketing tools are essential for promoting digital marketing activities. If you use tools, you can expect efficient marketing and effective customer attraction.

From here, we will introduce tools that will be a great force in digital marketing.

Customer management tools (SFA/CRM)

SFA is an abbreviation for Sales Force Automation, which is interpreted as a “sales support system” in Japan. It is a tool that can share data for all sales operations, such as basic customer information, project management, and confirmation of sales activities.

CRM is an acronym for Customer Relationship Management and is translated as “customer relationship management” a customer management tool for creating a database of customer information. You can record all communication with customers, including basic information such as age and gender, purchase records and inquiries.

By utilizing these functions, customer information can be shared company-wide, and in cooperation with other departments, an optimal approach can be realized according to the customer base.

A business card management tool

As the name suggests, the business card management tool is a tool for digitizing the business cards of customers and centrally managing them within the company. Since it can be shared not only with sales but also with other departments, anyone can quickly obtain the necessary information.

Also, when importing customer information into MA, there are cases where it is scanned once with a business card management tool and then imported. In addition to online management tools, there are many cases where individual devices play an active role, such as importing business cards.

SEO tools

SEO is one of the most important metrics in digital marketing. Many tools that can be used for “keyword selection,” which is the first step, are available on the site. There are many tools that can be used for free, such as researching keyword volume and knowing the ranking of keywords in Google and Yahoo! searches, so be sure to try them out.

The Access analysis tool

It is a tool to check the access status of websites and search for keywords. We collect various data, such as the number of page views of the content, the time spent on it, the number of searches for specific keywords, etc., and use it to improve the content and understand the needs.

The MA (Marketing Automation) Tool

The MA tool is a system that automates marketing activities for customer acquisition. You can automatically see what kinds of companies are accessing your company’s website, whether they opened your emails, and what actions your customers take, so you can approach them without missing the right timing.

In addition, it can be used in a wide range of ways, such as classifying customers to pursue highly sensitive leads, and preventing the loss of prospective customers through automatic management.

CMS tools

CMS is an abbreviation for Content Management System, and it is a tool that allows you to edit and update websites without specialized knowledge. You can work with simple operations like the office software you usually use, and if you can create a website in-house, it will lead to a reduction in outsourcing costs and production time.

There are “open source” CMS tools that can be used for free, such as WordPress, and “proprietary development” CMS tools that are provided for a fee, so choose the tool that is suitable for your company.

Web service tool

It is a tool for serving customers on the web, and it is mainly divided into “popup type” and “chatbot type.”

The pop-up type is a system that automatically displays advantageous information, recommended products, etc. on the site’s screen according to the user’s action.

A chatbot type is an “automatic conversation program” in which a computer responds in place of a human being. It automatically answers inquiries and prompts visitors to take action by asking them, “Do you have any problems?”

Social Network Services management tool

By using SNS management tools, you can efficiently proceed with social networking site marketing tasks, such as editing SNS posts, setting reservations, and grasping access status. You can post to multiple SNS, centrally manage your analysis data, and easily visualize complex data. If you can use tools to properly understand user reactions after posting on SNS, you will be able to improve the accuracy of your marketing.

An ad distribution tool

It is a tool that automates complicated advertisement placement, such as web advertisement operation and report creation.

Advertisements across multiple media such as Yahoo!, Google, and Twitter can also be centrally managed. If you choose a provider that even provides operational support, you can smoothly operate your advertisements without specialized knowledge.

A mail delivery tool

It is a tool that can simultaneously distribute a large number of e-mails such as e-mail magazines and notices, to registered members.

Each tool has a variety of functions, such as analyzing emails returned with errors and delivering them according to customer attributes.

Tools for Data Management Platforms

DMP is an abbreviation for Data Management Platform, and it is a tool that can manage and analyze data not only in-house but also published by external third parties.

By combining and analyzing your own and external data with tools, you can compare the trends of general customers and your own customers. It is useful for visualizing target users and developing new products.

Content is necessary for digital marketing.

Finally, we will introduce the necessary content for promoting digital marketing. Here, as a representative example, we will explain the five content products of “strengthening customer attraction”, “solving problems”, “promoting understanding”, “decision making”, and “creating projects”.

1. Content that strengthens customer attraction

Let’s create content to attract customers in order to increase the number of accesses to your site and the name recognition of your products and services. You will not be searched by brand name or product name from the beginning. You need to attract customers to get to know your site, products, and services.

Do SEO to get more traffic to your site. Clarify your target audience and research keywords that your users need. After that, create an overview of the content of your product or service by inserting keywords. Furthermore, if you enhance the company profile and know-how content, the trust in the company will also improve.

2. Content that solves problems

In order to dispel the mentality of “Is this service necessary?”

Specifically, introduction examples and usage examples of products and services are effective. If you clearly describe the issues, how to solve them, and how they will be used afterward, and if you can make them realize that “this service can solve the issues they are having,” it will lead to an increase in users’ willingness to purchase.

3. Content that deepens understanding

Next, we will convey the appeal to customers who are interested and have them recognize that it is a necessary service. To that end, it is important to clearly communicate the concept and strengths of your products and services to others in order to deepen their understanding of them. In addition, in order to increase the credibility of the company, it is also important to convert the company’s philosophy and corporate culture into the content.

4. Decision content

Decision content is content for making a decision to “purchase this product!” Make it easier to imagine that it is better to make a contract immediately by encouraging early contracts, such as “It will take at least 2 or 3 months, so hurry up” or holding a special campaign for a limited time.

Also, it is important to make a big difference from other companies. Prepare highly specialized content and show your company’s strengths, such as “No.

5. Content that leads to projects

In order to actually create projects, it is necessary to create input forms such as “online consultation” and “inquiry” and have contact with users. The content will trigger the provision of personal information, which will lead to business negotiations.

At that time, it is important to be able to provide useful information to users, such as white papers and seminars. Understanding the issues and objectives of the customer and getting close to their concerns is the key to creating projects.

Summary

Even if you say digital marketing in one word, there are many media, such as web advertisements, e-mail magazines, and social networking sites, and there are many methods. Even if you want to challenge yourself, you may not know where to start or how to start.

First of all, acquire basic knowledge and clarify the purpose and issues that your company will work on. There are many techniques, so you should be able to find the most suitable one.

If you don’t have anyone familiar with digital, or if you don’t have enough personnel, let’s introduce a digital marketing tool. Among them, we recommend MA tools that are suitable for managing leads from multiple channels.

With marketing automation tools, you can also understand which pages of your company’s site are being viewed by potential customers, and how many users are viewing one company.

In addition, it is also possible to narrow down the search by action or condition from the action log of each user. You can also improve customer loyalty with one-to-one marketing, such as finely segmented email newsletters. 

The greatest merit of introducing market automation tools is to create high-quality “business negotiations” by automating various measures and cultivating prospective customers in this way. There are many plans that you can start for free, so please try them once.