OPTIMIZATION IN DIGITAL MARKETING: WITH MORE FOCUS ON COMPETITION FOR BETTER MEASURES

09 Mar OPTIMIZATION IN DIGITAL MARKETING: WITH MORE FOCUS ON COMPETITION FOR BETTER MEASURES

With digital marketing, traditional marketing measures are supplemented or even (at least partially) replaced by a multitude of possibilities.

The entire marketing process has changed. As with most major changes, the consumer is likely to be at the beginning: digital media have created opportunities to permanently change the habits and behaviour of consumers. Irrespective of its size, an effect is irreversible: the number of touch points has increased significantly. With the “classics” TV, print, radio and POS it is no longer enough – digital alternatives challenge the classics again and again.

For the companies’ marketing departments, this means that they are familiar with analog and digital touch points in the Consumer Decision Journey and are able to master the associated “digital disciplines”.

MARKETING HAS TO MASTER MANY DIGITAL TOPICS…

Based on the respective strategy, every marketing process raises the question of efficiency – and how to improve your measures in a targeted manner.

When it comes to the digital measures (digital marketing with SEO, SEA, display ads etc. / social media / commercialization on the website / mobile optimization) and their optimization, one has the apparent advantage over the analog channels that everything is measurable.

Really everything.

“If your only tool is a hammer, you'll see every problem as a nail.” Mark Twain

This means that if you can measure, you can also measure. Meaningful or not to be put to one side. Whether the measured KPIs are the right ones, too.

We like to remember the panic in the marketing department of a leading electrical appliance manufacturer when the bounce rate of a campaign was worse than that of its predecessor. Of course – no one likes bounce rates, direct disconnected traffic is not exactly a seal of quality for the content and bounce rates usually cost money…

But it will never go without – i. e. a bit of shrinkage is always, just by accidental clicking and so on.

So the question arises: where do acceptable bounce rates stop and where does a bounce rate become a problem?

The comparison with the previous campaign is not helpful because one can have worsened from “excellent” to “very good”. However, this is no reason to panic, of course, should be observed, but panicky resources to set the topic is inefficient.

The scale is missing

Even if digital transformation is sometimes confused with the principle of throwing everything from the old world overboard unchecked:

We are convinced that a reasonable yardstick is necessary to identify our own fields of action. And that – and now the old world is coming into play – should be the direct competitors. Just like most brands do, for example, with regard to market shares or competitive analysis.

Why?

Because consumers are also confronted with the competitors of the category when preparing to buy.

No consumer will say that brand X is doing bad marketing because the bounce rate is worse than it was a year ago. Rather, consumers will find other offers from other brands in the same category better – and therefore, for example, less bouncing in the case of these brands.

We have developed the Digital Competence Index with this idea as our driving force: category-specific benchmarking, which identifies strengths and weaknesses of individual brands through a competitive comparison, and identifies the fields of action of the contracted brand in a handy score card that results from the competitive comparison.

So we can tell you if your bounce rate is critical (= worse than in the benchmark) or not. And if yes: then we check what the others do better, where the user experience is better, where advertising material fits better to the landing page etc….

We help you to stay up to date with the fragmented digital themes: twice a year our category reports are updated, you see your competitors’ developments, which topics take off, how you beat yourself in a competitive comparison – and where you should step on the gas.

In this way you can manage your topics and your team, and argue your actions and budgets against objective arguments. Better still, you can argue internally in management as you are accustomed to: by comparing it with the Bad Guys from the competition.

You’ll be understood!

Conclusion:

• Create a reasonable benchmark for the evaluation of your digital marketing: competitors from your category
• Stay up-to-date with the DCI Report: category-specific – competitive – actionable: Action Recommendations
• Use the competitive orientation in management and argue as you are used to there
• Call us – we will be happy to show you how we can help you in a web session

Translated using DeepL