3.

Digital tactics and operations

Introduction to Digital Marketing
Learning objectives
Prerequisites: Digital marketing context; Digital marketing strategy

The student is able to

• Define target groups deriving from the corporate strategy

• Outline value proposals and marketing messages

• Analyze and classify digital marketing channels to reach target audiences

• Create outlines for digital marketing campaigns responding to strategic objectives

• Define tools and KPIs to measure results

 • From strategy to implementation
• Value proposition and marketing
message
Topics • Defining target audiences
• Customer journey and marketing funnel
• Digital media and channels
• Setting objectives
• Measuring marketing impact
From strategy to implementation
From strategy to implementation
• Marketing must be fitted according to the strategy set by the organization
(presented in the submodule)

• Essential constraints determined by the strategy are

- potential of the market and competitors
- type and purpose of web visitors to be reached
- new customers acquisition (‘awareness’)
- customer engagement (‘interest’)
- customer experience (‘desire’, ‘decision’)
- customer conversion (‘action’)

• Tactics and operations cover the selected digital communication and

channels to fulfill these strategic objectives.
 Business
objectives
Defining the
online
opportunity
Evaluate digital Set digital
Assess online
marketing marketing strategic
marketplace

Digital marketing strategy development process.

Source: Adapted from Chaffey & Smith, 2017, p. 29.
performance objectives

Selecting the
strategy Define customer Define digital
Define segments
approach value proposition marketing strategy

Implementation Digital relationship Digital marketing Digital marketing

and practice marketing experience mix
=Digital
marketing
tactics and
operations Measure and
control
 Core elements and challenges of
marketing tactics
Define customer Digital marketing
Define segments
Value proposition mix

How to form your core Which are your target In which media and channels can
message(s)? audiences? you reach your target audiences?
Challenges

They should be How to select the right media out

comprehensive. of the abundance of them?
You must be unique.

You must be convincing. They must be definable. How to find the best ROI, i.e. the
impact compared to investment?
You must be able to name
channels where you reach How to measure the impact?
them.
Value proposition and marketing message
Value proposition
• Is necessary for distinguishing from competition
• Tells concisely why a product or service is best
suited for any particular customer.
• Forms the core of marketing messages
• Examples and further reading on value proposition

Note: the difference between Value proposition and

marketing message is that a value proposition is a
long-time statement reflecting the company brand,
whereas marketing messages are created for
Source: Clixpert
individual campaigns
Criteria for good advertising
• Consistent in look and message
o Aligned with company total strategy
o This creates resonance

• Targeted to right audiences and relevant for them.

o Meet right persons at right time

• Trustworth and valuable

o Present evidence on relevance

• Accessible through relevant customer touch points

o Know where your customers move!

• Measurable for its impact

Elements of a good marketing message?

• Respond to your customer´s needs,

values and style

• Describe your solutions and benefits

(and differentiate from competitors
when possible)

• Say something original

• Keep it clear and concise

• More examples and further reading on ‘

How to create a marketing message’
Example of a marketing message
In-class activity

1. Search for a marketing message that you think meets a good

message.

2. Analyze what it is that makes it a good message (reflect on what

you learned).

3. Present your example in class.

Defining target audiences
 Target audience
• Digital marketing campaigns are directed
towards target audiences that are mentioned in
the strategy

• A target audience consists of people who are

potential users of the product/service and
benefit from it
source: Digital Floats

• For stating the right message and channel, it is necessary to define the characteristics of the
target audience and the media where they can be found
• There are many characteristics to consider when building a picture of your target audience,
for instance
• Age, income level, hobbies, location, budget
• Internet device
• Internet search history, prior purchases, prior encounters with your business
Targeting - target audience
Targeting - target audience
Customer touch points
• Normally, a business has a number of points
to meet its customers, and vice versa

• It might be the website, service-desk or

shop

• Digital touchpoints are the different

moments in which a customer comes into
contact with a company through online
channels.

• Defining these touch points is necessary for

communication with the target audiences
Source: Wikimedia, Izzy Stangl
Customer journey and marketing funnel
 • Businesses are in various positions in their
market (e.g. newcomers, challengers,
established or declining brands)
Every business is
•
in a different In addition to target audiences, the market’
consists of competitors – these must also
strategic position considered in the strategy

• Implications:
• Marketing operations should be
adapted to respond your business´ • For all organizations, it is essential to identify
their strategic positions
strategic position
• Newcomers have far more challenge in
creating awareness, establishing confidence
and reaching new customers
• Established organizations may put more
effort in reinforcing their customerships and
brand
 • Only certain consumer goods are
bought on instant basis

• In special goods trade and B2B,, most

Target audience purchases involve a ‘buying process’

and their • This process involves evaluation and

comparison
‘buying processes’
• It can take minutes, days or months

• A variety of digital customer touch

points are involved in this process
(ads, social media, blogs, websites,
etc.)

• Taking these things in account

facilitates a business to do successful
marketing
Models to describe the buying process
Along the past decades, plenty of models have been created to describe the buying
process.

The most commonly used alternatives are called the Marketing Funnel (a.k.a.
AIDA), the Customer journey and the RACE models.

These models are useful in planning marketing and advertising tactics and
operations, as they offer topics for messages and channels where to meet the
customer. They suit well in the digital marketing processes as well.

AIDA and Customer journey are models to get more insights in the buyer’s point of
view. RACE helps an organization to reply to these buyer’s stages.
Marketing Funnel (a.k.a. AIDA)
We receive a great number of commercial signals and
messages each day - most of them, as well as the
businesses offering them - remain unknown for us.

Before we go to action (click a link, enter a shop, make

a purchase), we want to know more about the
business or the product, to get convinced.

The Marketing Funnel offers various implications:

• the buying process encompasses a certain path
where marketing and sales have a big role
• in the upper part mass advertising is needed,
whereas the mid-part is sales work, also called
as nurturing the buyers
• only a few processes lead to purchase (action)
-> businesses strive to improving the efficiency of
Further reading their funnel
Marketing Funnel and buyer stage
The potential buyer:

• Becomes aware of own need, or becomes affected

by a certain brand

• Wants to know more, searches information of

brand/product/service

• Knowledge has risen; overweighs best solutions

• Does comparison; evaluation; intends to be

convinced

• Has selected most appropriate solution; makes

decision
Marketing Funnel and buyer touch points
Buyer touch points (digital):

• Advertisement (Google Ads, Display ads, Shopping,

Local ads, Youtube ads, …); Blogs; Websites

• Content on businesses´ websites; Social ads;

Reviews

• Newsletters; Social media; Q&As´ on businesses´

websites; personified emails

• Item related blogs & websites; social media

• Conducting purchase - ordering & shopping online

In-class activity for applying the AIDA-model

1. Choose a campaign that caught your attention.

2. Analyze how this campaign runs through the AIDA model (buyer’s
point of view). How does it create awareness, interest, etcetera?

3. Present your example in class.

 The RACE model
How a business can reply to the buyer stages:
• Make a plan (for different target audiences)

• Approach and reach customers - target the

right customers at the right time and place

• Take actions - try different things and study

what works best

• Turn leads into customers and monetize

your marketing efforts

• Build customer loyalty - thrilled customers

will spread good word
Figure source: smartinsights.com

Further reading: video by Dave Chaffey

RACE
Further
implications of
the RACE Model
In-class activity for applying the RACE-model

1. Choose a campaign that caught your attention.

2. Analyze how this campaign runs through the RACE-model

(company’s point of view). How does it reach customers? What are
the following steps that drive customers into action and establish a
relationship?

3. Present your example in class.

Customer journey

Source and further reading: Deviniti.com

Example on ‘customer journey’ - buying a dress

Source: Chaffey, 2020

In-class activity
Figure out and inspect a buyer process case. Below some suggestions (feel
free to choose others, as well)

a vehicle (car, bike, boat, ..)

consumer electronics
hobby or sports
health care (individual, family, pet,..)
interior design
other

• Figure out how the different stages in the buyer process?

• Which kinds of triggers can lead to ‘awareness’.
• How intensive is the process of seeking information?
• What does it take to proceed to ‘purchase’?
• What means ‘retention’ from the seller/buyer points of view?
• Which channels and media are involved in the different stages?
Digital media and channels
Digital media and channels
• After defining the target audiences and their phase in the buying process, the
marketer has constraints to choose the channels

• The picture presents the range of digital media and instruments that are available

• Through them, any target group can be reached in digital ‘ecosystems and
environments.

• Their choices and deployment are determined according to the strategy, message
and target groups

• Note: The best result will be achieved when digital instruments and media are
combined with traditional marketing media (multichannel marketing)
Traditional - digital media?
• Due to competition,
advertising expenditures of
organizations keep rising,
ever since 2017

• The share of digital media is

rising, yet traditional
marketing media are still
used essentially
• The graph shows an
average of all advertisers
Source: Statista (2022)
• It is obvious that there are huge variations
between different types of organizations
Some branches promote more than others
The need for promotion is vital
when there is much competition
(such as alimentary stuff, consumer
electronics etc.)

Larger companies tend to use

higher share of their total budget in
marketing

In general, B2C companies spend

higher budgets than B2B
companies

Source: Merehead, 2021

Social media
What & Why?
● ‘Social media’ cover a variety of platforms where everyone can publish and comment (e.g. Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, Blogs, Youtube, Twitter, TikTok)
● Those who publish interesting ‘posts’ earn followers (most persons are followers, just a few are publishers)
● Posts can be shared further in networks and get ‘viral’ - this creates ‘earned publicity’
● Social media platforms also permit advertising to carefully selected target groups

How?
⮚ Establish accounts on the social media platforms where your customers are likely to be
⮚ Start publishing content you think might interest your target audiences, considering the
appropriate type of contents of respective media
⮚ Promote your posts and/or create new ads, deploy the targeting tools of respective social media
⮚ Keeping on for some time, you have the option to reach new audiences and activate them
Website
What & Why?
● Ever more product & service searches are made on internet - ‘if not there, you don´t exist’
● Your website permits to locate a wide range of information and make it visible to the whole
world
● This information can be offered as text, product descriptions, visual elements, videos and links
● It is accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime - making the organization available 24/7
● A qualified website permit to improve the brand of your organization
● Its role is central also, as most of your social media and ads lead to the website

How?
➢ Smaller organizations do them by themselves (Wordpress, WIX, etc.); bigger units outsource it
➢ Websites must be planned for the target groups and their representatives (‘buyer personas’)
SEO (Search engine optimization)
What & why?
● Search engines (e.g. Google) seek to organize relevant web pages, in order to offer
appropriate results for every individual searcher (if not, Google does not have a business)
● To succeed in this, Google reviews and ranks each website continuously, to define how
much useful information they include for each search
● Search results are also the most important source for website traffic
● For this reason, it is vital to have a good position in the search engine result page (SERP)
● SEO refers to all the activities that improve the position in search results, in accordance to
the Google criteria for ‘website quality’
How?
➢ SEO can be conducted in many ways: driving traffic to the website, linking the website to
other websites out/in, defining the key words and adding content related to them, writing
meaningful metatexts and ensuring the technical performance and security
Ads - Digital advertising
What & Why?
● Search engine advertising (SEA) makes possible to
appear on top of search results with an ad
● They are shown to users who use certain search words
● This helps to drive traffic to a website and to make new
product or companies known for wider audiences
● Display Advertising takes place in many kinds of digital
media, reaching specific audiences via display networks
● It helps to increase brand awareness, by getting in front
of potential customers that don't yet know your brand search engine advertising

How?
➢ SEA can be bought and set directly on search engine
platforms
➢ Display advertising can be bought at digital media houses

display advertising (=banner)

Content marketing
What and why?
● Content marketing is a marketing strategy used to attract, engage,
and retain an audience by creating and sharing relevant articles,
videos, podcasts, and other media
● It is often used by businesses in order to achieve the following goals: attract attention and
generate leads, expand their customer base, generate or increase online sales, increase
brand awareness or credibility, and engage an online community of users.
● Content marketing attracts new customers by creating and sharing valuable free content.
It helps companies create sustainable brand loyalty, provides valuable information to
consumers, and creates a willingness to purchase products from the company in the
future

How?
➢ It all starts from the needs of your target groups and their position in the ‘customer
journey’
➢ Good content gives them answers to their questions, useful hints or other valuable
information
➢ Its form and channels should be selected according to where the target groups are
E-mail marketing
What and why?
● A marketing form where you can send focused messages to registered customers in
mass quantities
● It has low expenses and the mails reach the recipients without any ‘algorithm filter’
● E-mail marketing campaigns can be used for promoting special offers, new product
releases, publications or your brand at large
● A way of reinforcing brand and customer loyalty

How?
➢ The presentation text and pics of the emails should be personal and attractive
➢ When useful and appealing, the recipients become engage and continue opening them
Instruments for different phases
● Apt for newcomer/raising awareness:
○ Social
○ Website (+mobile opt.)
○ SEO
○ start content marketing
○ Ads

● Apt for boosting an existing company

○ continued content marketing
○ e-mail
○ conversation marketing
○ CRM

Further reading
In-class activity for analyzing the different
instruments
1. Go back to the campaign you chose for applying the RACE-model.

2. Analyze which instruments are used for this campaign in the

different phases.

3. Consider whether you find these instruments suitable and explain

why.

4. Present your example in class.

Objectives and measures
 Objective levels
Source: Adapted from HubSpot

TAM or Total Available Market is the

total market demand for a product or
service.
SAM or Serviceable Available Market
is the segment of the TAM targeted by
your products and services which is
within your geographical reach.
SOM or Serviceable Obtainable
Market is the portion of SAM that you
can capture.

NPbT= Normalized Profit Before

Tax
Source: Barker et al., 2017, p. 34.
Example of goals… and KPIs

● provide product information ➢ number of customer contacts

● increase awareness ➢ awareness %
● drive traffic to website ➢ visitor rates on website
●
➢ sales €
create sales
➢ members in social media
● build community
communities
● engage customers to return ➢ rates of returning visitors, time
● reinforce expertise profile spent on site
● strengthen company brand ➢ brand & loyalty polls, NPS
Digital analytics
What and why?
● Digital platforms permit measuring their performance,
actions and behaviour of their visitors.
● The processes of collection, reporting, and analysis of
such data is called web analytics.
● Versatile data can be obtained e.g. from websites,
Facebook & IG accounts, blogs, Ads and
banner campaigns, etc.
● This data helps virtually in launching more successful
campaigns and improving customer experience
Source: Simplilearn
How?
● Start from your objectives and KPIs and which actions are relevant for measuring them
● Include the needed analytics elements in your website code
● As tools, you can use google analytics, or a wide range of other algorithm-driven analytical
tools
Which are the sources of traffic to our website?
Socia
l Search engines: Visitors that discover
medi Direct your website from a search engine.
Search a traffic
engines Direct traffic: Visitors that visit your site by
typing your URL into their browser.

Social media: Users who click a link in

social media posts or ads.

Company Campaigns: Your ads on other sites or

website search engines.
Campaigns E-mail: Link clicked in your email

Pages of referral traffic: Visitors that visit

Pages
E- your site by clicking on a URL on another
of
mail website.
referral
Further reading:
Laire digital; Arimetrics
What happens after the ’click’?
E.g. a banner ad: What can be done
to improve the rates
(‘conversion’)?

CTR 5% bounce rate 70%

100.000 see 5.000 click to site 1.500 stay and read 300 return 50 buy

95.000 do not click... 3.500 leave 1.200 will not 250 will not
immediately... Return... buy…
The base of analytics: algorithms

• Along with digital data growing exponentially,

there is a need to structure this data and sort it, by
applying algorithms, in order to become useful

o An algorithm is a mathematical formula that

includes factors that are seen essential in the
phenomen

For instance, in website analytics: amount of visitors,

time spent on website, amount of key words, …

o In this way, social, cultural and social

interactions are being translated into readable
data
(Urricchio, 2011)

5
In-class activity for setting goals to monitor and
evaluate the different instruments or channels
1. Go back to the different instruments you would use for the campaign
you analyzed.

2. Define the different goals and kpi’s you can use to monitor and
evaluate the success of the different instruments.

3. Explain how these goals and kpi’s contribute to the business and
marketing objectives.

4. Present your example in class.

Assignment “Choice of digital marketing channels”
Group work Self-selected case (students can choose a company)

Your company works since several years in the consumer goods market. You want to
boost the sales and plan a marketing campaign on digital media. Create a plan for
each buying stage (A-C-P-R-A) applying the Customer journey. Use course material
and internet sources.

1. Choose a company and be acquainted on it using their website (also Q&A).

2. Define 3-4 target groups. Imagine them to be in different stages of their buying
journey.
3. Make a persona for each target group.
4. Fill out a customer journey map and find out what the experiences are from the
customer's point of view.
5. Based on your view of the business, plan a core message (3-4 sentences) for
each group, encouraging them further in the buying process.
Assignment “Choice of digital marketing channels”
Group work Self-selected case (students can choose a company)

6. Define digital media and channels to reach the target groups (for each message).

7. Set goals and kpi’s for those digital media and channels using the different stages
of a digital marketing funnel framework.

8. Define how you are going to monitor, measure and evaluate the actions to learn
and improve.

9. Present in 12-15 ppt slides. Note 7-8 sources used (for argumenting topics 1-4).
Sources
Barker, M. S., Barker, D. I., Bormann, N. F., Roberts, M. L., & Zahay, D. (2017). Social Media
Marketing: a Strategic Approach (2nd ed.). Cengage Learning
Chaffey, D., & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2016). Digital marketing: strategy, implementation and practice
(6th ed). Pearson Education Limited.
Chaffey, D., & Smith, PR (2017). Digital Marketing Excellence (5th ed.). Routledge
Chaffey (2012): Digital Marketing - Strategy, Implementation and Practice

Chaffey, D. (2020, July 8). Customer journey map,

Customer journey map definition and examples - What is? - Digital marketing Glossary (davechaffey
.com)
Digital Floats (2018, July 28) Top Strategies for Targeting Audience in Digital Marketing,
Top Strategies for Targeting Audience in Digital Marketing | Digital Floats
Laura Laire (2021, December 31) Website Traffic Sources Breakdown: What’s the Difference?
Website Traffic Sources Breakdown: What’s the Difference? (lairedigital.com)
Sources
Needle, F. (2021, December 15) How To Identify Your Core Marketing Message,
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/marketing-message
Neher, K. (2019) Digital Marketing That Actually Works
Shepetyuk, I. (2023, March 14) What is the average marketing budget by industry?
What is the Average Marketing Budget by Industry? - Merehead
Wísnik, M. (2021, February 11) How to improve the customer journey using digital tools,
How to improve the customer journey using digital tools (deviniti.com)
The DEMS material aims to enhance digital marketing skills
in higher education, responding to the needs in business
and organizations. You have access to extensive slide sets
with in-class activities and assignments, as well as detailed
user instructions for teacher. You are free to use part or
whole of the material available.

The material includes contents and figures retrieved from the

internet and is thus subject to changes. The sources have
been announced according to the rules of fair use. The
material as a whole can be viewed and downloaded from
www.dems.pro. All material is produced for open use and co-
funded by Erasmus +.