it achieve a very specific goal. Voilá! Integrated, strategic digital marketing—a poster child for marketing in the new ecosystem.
» How Your Company Can Embrace the New Ecosystem, Too
In this book, I’ll be introducing the five essential principles to building marketing momentum in the digital age: agility, customer focus, integration, content curation, and cross-pollination.
Here’s what to expect from each chapter:
Chapter 2: 1st Principle of Momentum: Agility Through Analytics—Far from the static marketing campaigns of the past, the new ecosystem demands agile marketing based on analytics. This chapter will show you how to lay the groundwork for agility, introduce the most helpful analytics tools, and demonstrate exactly how to tweak your marketing strategy to drive results.
Chapter 3: 2nd Principle of Momentum: Customer Focus—The new marketing ecosystem is completely customer-driven, from its reliance on customer engagement and feedback to its focus on customization. But perhaps most importantly, the most successful digital marketing today enables consumer self-expression. This chapter will show you how to craft your marketing strategy to attract your ideal customers and make them into fans for life.
Chapter 4: 3rd Principle of Momentum: Integration— Marketing today no longer occurs via individual, siloed media. Rather, customers interact with you simultaneously via multiple channels, both physical and digital. This chapter will discuss ways to merge your strategies for individual channels into one cohesive whole.
Chapter 5: 4th Principle of Momentum: Content Curation—The old model of marketing demanded content in high quantities. The new model focuses on quality and smart content curation—filtering the content you share through your unique brand. This chapter will show you how to become a pro at attracting visitors—and ultimately, customers—with your approach to content.
Chapter 6: 5th Principle of Momentum: Cross-Pollination—Every resource you have can be harnessed to give your marketing more momentum, and this chapter will show you how. From leveraging relationships with employees, vendors, and partners, to integrating every aspect of your business under the marketing umbrella, you’ll learn how to move from scattered to strategic in your use of the assets available to you.
The final chapter, Chapter 7: Measuring Marketing ROI in the Digital Age, will focus on how to measure marketing ROI in this new ecosystem. In today’s multi-touch marketing world, are you mistaking the final touch point as the only point of conversion? You have to make sure that you are considering the multi-faceted nature of today’s marketing as you measure ROI.
Making the change from the old model of marketing to the new ecosystem of momentum doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, as you make the transition, you’ll see right away how much easier it is to handle than the old model, with its constant push for more content and more posts on more social media platforms. So take a deep breath, let go of your current notions of marketing, and let’s dive into the new reality of digital marketing together.
chapter 2
1st Principle of Momentum:
Agility Through Analytics
Agility means the ability to pivot and change direction quickly, based on data gained from in-depth analytics, in order to take advantage of opportunities to grow your business. Your business’ marketing momentum depends heavily on its ability to embrace agility and continuously revamp its strategies based on analytics.
HOW MANY TIMES have you heard the business mantra “Adapt or die”? It’s a common enough saying that you’d think this first principle of momentum, agility, was nothing new. The imperative to change according to market conditions has always been a major part of business.
But what hasn’t always been a part of business is the incredible amount of data now available, from supply-chain tracking information to e-commerce website analytics.
Due to this constant influx of data, adapting is no longer something that can take place only every once in a while—every few years, say, or even every quarter. Today agile businesses can, and should, adapt to changing conditions and new information almost instantly.
The sheer volume of data available in real time about every aspect of consumers’ interactions with your emails, social media posts, blog posts, website, and paid ads means that shaping and refining strategies and campaigns based on that information is a never-ending process.
And that process is the single most essential element in capitalizing on and building momentum from your marketing successes.
In the world of digital marketing, things happen at the speed of light. A well-timed tweet can go viral in seconds, spreading brand awareness in no time flat—think Oreo’s famous tweet when the lights went out at the Super Bowl in 2013: “Power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.” It’s that kind of swift move to take advantage of a trending topic or a new insight into audience behavior that creates the momentum you need to be successful in today’s marketing ecosystem—and it’s the constant tweaks and course adjustments, based on data about your audience’s responses to your marketing, that continue to build that momentum.
Agility in marketing leads directly to marketing momentum.
So how can your company go about becoming more agile?
» Agility in Action
Let’s take another look at that sports drink company we mentioned in chapter 1—we’ll call them Marketade. How did Marketade come up with the idea to promote its drinks through mobile and Facebook offers? Did Stan in Marketing just come up with the brilliant idea during a meeting one day, all fleshed out and ready to implement?
Yeah, probably not.
The idea probably began as a much simpler version of the promotion, maybe just an offer for a free drink popping up once a jogger reached the end of their route.
Now, Marketade is an agile company, so it tracks its analytics carefully, and then puts its insights to good use.
In looking at the data here, Stan probably noticed that their initial offer was successful, and that customers weren’t waiting to redeem it, but instead were going to the nearest store to immediately get their free drink. But even more exciting than that, they were then sharing the fact that they had gotten a free drink with friends on social media!
Had anyone asked them to share this information? Nope. Did they get any benefit from telling friends? No. And yet there they were, letting their friends know about the promotion. What gives?
People love to spread the word about deals among friends— especially when associating themselves with a certain product or service makes them look good. And what could possibly make you look better than sharing a deal on a healthy drink, thus subtly letting friends know how fit and health-conscious you are?
Stan realized that Marketade was really on to something here. How could they tweak the campaign to capitalize on the momentum that was already building through these voluntary shares?
First,
